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MEXICO 
ON THE VERGE 



BY 

E. J. DILLON 

AutTior of " The Eclipse of Russia," " Ourselves 
and Qermany," "Busaian Characteristics," etc. 




NEW SI By YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






Copyright, 1921, 
By George H. Doran Company 



J 1 



Printed in ihr United States of America 



n\y 



w- 



TO MY FRIEND 

FERNANDO TORREBLANCA 

A TYPICAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE NEW PROGRESSIVE ELEMENTS 

OF REGENERATE MEXICO WHO DRAW STIMULUS FOR SOCIAL 

ENDEAVOR FROM INTENSE FAITH IN THEIR COUNTRY'S 

CAUSE, UNFLAGGING HOPE IN ITS DESTINIES 

AND A HIGHLY CULTIVATED SENSE OF 

DUTY TO THEIR FELLOWS 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I INTRODUCTORY II 

II Mexico's transformation 14 

III MEXICO IN CARRANZa's DAYS 21 

IV Mexico's last dictator ........ 31 

V education of the people . 37 

VI preparing the atmosphere 48 

VII the white man's precious burden .... 69 

VIII THE FOREIGN PIONEER . 79 

IX THE OUTLANDER AND THE MEXICAN 88 

X OIL AND WATER lOI 

XI TAXATION OR CONFISCATION? 112 

XII CASTING OUT DEMONS BY BEELZEBUB AND SAVING 

MEXICO IN SPITE OF HERSELF 120 

XIII MORAL GUARDIANSHIP I27 

XIV FLAWS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF I917 .... I37 

XV OIL AND POLITICS 151 

XVI THE NEO-MONROE DOCTRINE 165 

XVII MR. fall's MEXICAN PROGRAMME 182 

XVIII RECOGNITION BY TREATY 20I 

XIX THE PUBLIC DEBT AND NATIONAL CRIMINALITY . . 22$ 

XX ^Brecon's tasks and difficulties . . . , . 245 

XXI THE fall from GRACE IN HAITI 265 

XXII CONCLUSION ,,.,,,,,,,.. 286 



MEXICO ON THE VERGE 



MEXICO ON THE VERGE 



CHAPTER I 

Introductory 

The following pages offer a brief presentment of the main 
factors of the Mexican situation which is now entering upon 
a critical stage. The subject is tabooed by the average student 
of contemporary politics on the ground that it is purely re- 
gional, devoid of interest and without noteworthy bearings on 
the principal currents of the world's history. As a matter of 
demonstrable fact, it is the reverse of all that. Mexico to-day 
is the subject of an experiment which, whatever the upshot, 
bids fair to link it for all time with one of the most fateful 
and far-ranging changes in the basic relations of political com- 
munities with one another. In sooth it is no exaggeration to 
say that the first deciding move in the work of transfiguring 
those relations and setting the State-systems of the world upon 
wholly new foundations is now being made in that Republic. 
And this essay is scarcely noticed by statesmen or politicians 
while its trend is not realised even by the races and peoples to 
the course of whose life-history it is about to impart a new and 
chartless direction. Thus the tide of cosmic innovations which 
some observers are anxiously watching in Eastern Europe is in 
reality rolling away from that quarter of the globe to the 
shores of the Mexican Gulf and the southern banks of the Rio 
Grande where new precedents are being forged and strange 
doctrines promulgated which the near future may see eagerly 
adopted in the older Continents with results which it would be 
idle to forecast. It is the little beginnings that call for the 
closest attention but unhappily the statesmen who could and 

should scrutinise those which are certain to lead to the most 

11 



12 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

momentous consummations are at present absorbed by futile 
wrangling and barren enterprises. 

In attempting to determine the forces now at work, to 
measure their intensity and foreshadow some of their probable 
effects, the writer strove to purge his mind of bias and his find- 
ings of blame and praise. The latter aim was all the more 
easy of attainment in that the law of cause and effect takes no 
account of morality and that the principal politicians, the re- 
sults of whose follies and failings are now being visited upon 
the ill-starred Mexican people, have passed beyond the reach 
of censure, bequeathing to others, as they departed, the fair in- 
heritance with the heavy curse attached. For the course of 
Mexican history, every page of which is framed with a black 
mourning border, bears a curious likeness to that of ancient 
Creek tragedy wherein grim requital fastens upon the innocent 
with the deadly grip of cruel fate. 

The following analysis of the national and international 
difficulties which Mexico in the person of General Obregon has 
now to tackle will be found to differ from the views current in 
the United States which stand for the real beliefs of some and 
for the ardent wishes of others. Whether this non-conformity 
of the writer is a defect or a merit, coming events will show. 
Despite strenuous efforts he cannot claim to be absolutely im- 
partial — no historian has ever reached this ideal. But at least 
he is sincere and disinterested. No sensible person imagines 
that all the evils which a decade of lawless orgies has inflicted 
on the Mexican people or all the vices engrafted on certain sec- 
tions of it can be dislodged in a twinkling. There are some in- 
deed which cannot be displaced by ordinary methods at all. 
Some devils, we are told, it is impossible to exorcise even by 
prayer and holy water. The circumstance should also be borne 
in mind that in public affairs there is one kind of slowness which 
ripens and another which rots, and that the latter was a charac- 
teristic of the Carranza regime while the former marks the 
methods of Obregon, 

Foreigners who possess material interests in Mexico gen- 
erally wear blinkers, keep only their particular goal in sight, 
believe in their own methods to the exclusion of others and are 



INTRODUCTORY 13 

impatient of contradiction. If some of the remedies which 
they confidently propose are specifics at all, it is often only 
against imaginary diseases, or artificially implanted vices. 
Such readers may well take exception to much in these pages 
and indeed to any study of the subject emanating from a de- 
tached onlooker, and if they would read an expose of the mat- 
ter entirely to their liking they must write or dictate it them- 
selves, as not a few of them are wont to do. Among them are 
many who, in their haste to pass judgment on the general prob- 
lem which they confound with their own particular Interest 
in it, take no pains to understand its deciding elements, while 
the credulous and easy-going are misled by the wild stories de- 
liberately circulated not only in the United States but also 
among the foreign residents of Mexico. 

"Is It a fact," several distinguished Americans asked me in 
Washington last April, "that Villa Insists on being represented 
in Obregon's cabinet by one of his partisans, and what effect 
will that have on Mexico's foreign policy?" I answered — "It 
Is just as likely as that Eugene Debs Is about to pitchfork one 
of his comrades Into the Harding administration." "Yes, 
but here is the American newspaper that makes the statement. 
What do you say to that?" "Only that paper endureth all 
things which publishers or capitalists pay to have printed on 
it." My interlocutors frowned and fell silent. 



CHAPTER II 
Mexico's Transformation 

The Turks, of all races on the globe, have a proverb which 
says that fire and faggots, bloodshed and banditry, are sorry- 
re formers. And what to English-speaking peoples may seem 
stranger still than the nationality of that saying is that its 
truth has at last been brought home to Mexico, to that restless 
republic which for years has been, seemingly, endeavouring 
to heat her house with sparks. And she has already begun to 
profit by it. A new spirit is springing up everywhere and 
new men are embodying it, a spirit of justice on the part of 
the country's leaders and an incipient respect for law and or- 
der among the rank and file, and the outside world takes no 
note of the change. 

The bulk of the nation — the people who paid and still are 
paying the heavy cost of all the revolutions, rebellions and ris- 
ings — needed no arguments to convince them. They, indeed, 
had seen and suffered enough to convert them to pacificism 
long ago, had they stood in need of conversion. The obstacles 
in the way of law and order were never of their making. The 
main difficulty, which until quite recently seemed insuperable, 
was to inoculate the leaders of the people with that salutary 
doctrine of peaceful evolution and to render them immune 
against the bait offered by interested foreign mischief-makers. 
And of effecting this even optimists despaired. For, when- 
ever some semblance of a Government emerged from the reek 
and gore of civil war, there always remained a nucleus of agi- 
tators who, egged on by outsiders, continued the subversive 
work and played the part of a Bickford string, connecting 
makc-lx?licve ideals with bombism and bloodshed. Ideals? 
They knew not what they are. The English Revolution was 
mainly religious. The French Revolution was largely social. 
Most of the Mexican "revolutions" were neither, and as a 

14 



MEXICO'S TRANSFORMATION 15 

consequence they often 'degenerated into a sequence of high- 
way robberies. The last change of regime was a noteworthy 
exception. For it was the work of a few upright, selfless men 
who voiced and executed the will of the inarticulate people 
and satisfactorily answered the question so often put by for- 
eigners: "If the Mexicans disapprove their Government, why 
do they not overturn it and set up a better one?" This has 
now been effected by a truly progressive group of democratic 
leaders whose watchword is law, justice, equal opportunity for 
all, and whose moving spirit is General Obregon. 

Anarchy and violence are apparently now at last about to 
pass into the history of an epoch that is no more and are to be 
followed by a period of strenuous building up, of moral, in- 
tellectual and economic development, of friendly intercourse 
with foreign peoples whose co-operation is openly recognised 
as an indispensable condition of success. For the governing 
body is at last of one mind with the bulk of the people and is 
determined to turn the sword into a ploughshare and the battle- 
fields into pastures and corn-growing lands. 

While war is still destroying the achievements of civilised 
man in Europe, Asia and Africa, it looks then as though Mex- 
ico had really inaugurated an era of internal reconstruction — 
that Mexico of which it was recently and truly said that its 
normal condition was internal strife and anarchy. Even the 
casual observer can entertain no doubt that a vast change has 
recently come over the people and — what is more to the point 
— over those who now shape its destinies. To determine in 
advance the final outcome of this change, especially in view of 
the system of obstruction with which it has to cope abroad, is 
a task for a prophet. The utmost that a conscientious chron- 
icler can undertake is to describe and characterise its principal 
signs and tokens. And such a one will have no hesitation 
in qualifying these as eminently favorable. 

My opportunities of observation have been exceptionally 
great. I have journeyed with General Obregon over thou- 
sands of miles of the Republic, considerable portions of which 
were already known to me under the Carranzist regime, when 
soldiers had to escort the trains ; when we had to spend the 



16 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

night at Saltillo or San Luis Potosi lest brigands should de- 
rail or blow up the carriages and kill, rob, or hold to ransom 
the passengers. 

In the month of March, 1920, the late President Carranza, 
in the course of an interesting conversation I had with him, 
assured me that he could not return the railways to their 
owners because no private company could run the trains in 
the face of such constant perils. All trains had to be accom- 
panied by escorts of soldiers supplied by the State. But in 
lieu of rooting out the pests which thus preyed upon the 
people, he was preparing to have a line of blockhouses con- 
structed along the principal railway routes with a view to re- 
ducing the number of outrages and rendering travel less in- 
secure. That reminded me of the method applied by a Rus- 
sian Commune to combat the cholera; they purchased five 
hundred coffins! The idea of defeating Villa, for example, 
never seems to have entered his head as a plan to be speedily 
realised. Neither had he any grounded hopes of quelling 
General Pelaez's rebellion in the South where the proprietors 
of the oil fields were compelled to pay tribute for their protec- 
tion to the leader of the insurgents. And when I, an un- 
armed foreigner, desired to cross the Sierra from Oaxaca to 
Salina Cruz, it was to the rebel General Mexueira that I had 
to apply for a safe-conduct. But although I had absolute con- 
fidence in that General's good faith, I had none at all in the 
value of his safe-conduct outside his own district. For I was 
warned that there was a bandit zone between his troops and 
those of the Federal Government through which I must pass 
and where the highwaymen not only took the property of the 
travellers but completed the work by taking their lives as well. 
A journey of six or seven days across the mountains in those 
conditions was not particularly attractive. And as I could not 
get any one to accompany me I had to give up the plan and 
alter my route. 

Whithersoever I journeyed. I found the people ground 
down by crushing exactions, terrorised by rebels, bandits. Fed- 
eral soldiers and in perpetual dread of what the morrow might 
bring. In the State of Michoacan and elsewhere I visited 



MEXICO'S TRANSFORMATION 17 

manor houses on large estates — haciendas is the Spanish 
name — which a few years before had been luxuriously fur- 
nished, but having been gutted by a succession of bandits, 
were now in an advanced state of decay. They had no baths, 
hardly any furniture and that of the most primitive kind. 
The walls in some of the rooms were riddled with bullet holes, 
the roofs open to the rain. And the proprietors told me that 
they were afraid to spend a peso in repairing their homes lest 
they should be wrecked again. Some of these great landed 
proprietors, beggared and desperate, were preparing to go 
into voluntary exile in order to escape worse misfortunes than 
those which had already overtaken them. And since then they 
have emigrated to England, Spain or the United States. 

Thus a dense cloud of depression overhung the country 
and paralysed the people. Enterprise was throttled. No capi- 
talist except the oil companies would invest money or labour 
in any undertaking, however promising, because he could never 
be sure that the fruits of his labour would be his to enjoy. 
Indeed, the experience of the recent past had taught him to 
feel that he was working for others — for those who neither 
toil nor reap but merely harvest in what they have failed to 
destroy. And not only the products of the soil, but the land 
itself was occasionally taken from its lawful owners and given 
to favourites of the Supreme Chief. I saw several houses, 
which, together with orchards and fields, had been disposed 
of in this way, and I was told that the man to whom they had 
been presented, fearing lest they should be restored by some 
subsequent government with a conscience, had made hot haste 
to sell them. While I was in the State of Jalisco an acquaint- 
ance — a European — told me that he had lost his house and 
land in this way and his appeal to the Supreme Court had only 
elicited a confirmation of the arbitrary decree. He added, 
however — and this is the point of the story — ^that a proposal 
had recently been made to him to spend three thousand pesos 
in bribing a certain individual who undertook to have the 
irrevocable judgment of the Supreme Court reversed. Thus 
justice, the basis of all human society — ^was turned into its 
opposite by the very men who were justifying their revolu- 



18 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

tion and their tenure of power by the necessity of establishing 
it on a solid foundation. 

A severe jiulpiient has been passed upon the Carranza 
regime by the Mexican press of to-day. They describe the 
late President as a self-centred dictator who violated the laws, 
oppressed the people and was responsible to no one. Indeed, 
"there were no responsible persons anywhere," writes one of 
the i)rcss organs of the capital. "A few of the independent 
ncwsi)apcrs did, it is true, call loudly for a return to morality 
and intet;rity in puljlic departments and demand that the chiefs 
of the bureaucratic gang be called to account for their mis- 
deeds. But their cries were in vain. Nobody was answerable 
for anything. . . . From the Minister to the usher each one 
nudged the other and gave a look of mutual understanding 
at his neighbour, casting a side glance at Don Venustiano 
the while, as much as to say: 'The Chief has to answer for 
us.' And the Chief . . . never deemed himself bound to 
offer explanations to any one of the good or bad use — and it 
was almost invariably bad, — of his versatile powers. . . . Be- 
lieving himself, in virtue of the Constitution of Guadalupe, 
to be exempt even from the last judgment he was content to 
contract his nostrils. . . . Mexico's peril lies in the camarillas, 
in the parasites, in the abject and degenerate types who eschew 
fair play in the strenuous struggle for life and support them- 
selves by selling their flattery."^ And one must add that it 
was precisely such types as these that were courted, "atmos- 
phered" and bril)ed by foreign interests for their own purposes. 

Such was Mexico's condition down to April, 1920, and 
Carranza expected it to last. To my question whether he dis- 
cerned any clouds on the political horizon, he gave answer: 
"None." Then added after a brief pause: "Possibly a few 
tiny cloudlets in the guise of local riots after the elections. 
But nothing more serious. The population is contented." 
That was the President's mature judgment in the latter half 
of March. Nor did he modify it until he set out with a cargo 
of gold and a multitude of parasites on his journey to Vera 
Cruz which led him to the end of his earthly career. As for 

iCf. La Revolucion, 14 dc junio, 1920. 



MEXICO'S TRANSFORMATION 19 

his tragic death, everything possible was done by the leaders 
of the revolution, and in particular by General Obregon, to 
save his life. But in vain. A plain-speaking, straightforward 
Mexican whom I met in Sonora thus explained the sad incident 
epigrammatically : "Carranza had with him a great quantity 
of gold and was surrounded by a gang of robbers. Is it a 
wonder that he was killed?" 

Since May, 1920, a complete transformation has been un- 
dergone by the country, and it is interesting to note the people's 
mental reactions with the purer and exhilarating moral atmos- 
phere created by the new regime. I had observed the benefi- 
cent change everywhere among all classes and in all walks of 
life. I accompanied General Obregon on his various journeys 
from Mexico City to Guadalajara, Colima, Manzanillo, Mazat- 
lan, Culiacan, Guaymas, Hermosillo, Nogales (Sonora) ; then 
on his electoral campaign to Puebla, Tlascala, Atlizco, Tehua- 
can, Oaxaca, Orizaba, down through the States of Chiapas, 
Tabasco and Yucatan, and back through Vera Cruz to the capi- 
tal of the Republic, Our trains were not escorted by soldiers, 
:we generally travelled in second-class carriages,^r— mingled 
with the people, listened to what they had to say, observed 
their demeanour towards the new authorities, and learned their 
grievances and aspirations. The reflections suggested by what 
we saw and heard were not unlike those which Arthur Young 
received during his travels in pre-revolutionary France. 

Already the Government is assiduously repairing the dam- 
age caused by its predecessors and their enemies. The rail- 
ways are being returned or about to be returned to their 
owners. Rebellions have ceased. Even Villa, who for years 
was the ineradicable plague of the country has repented and 
found salvation, and he and his partisans have become ardent 
tillers of the soil. The Government is dealing magnanimously 
with all its enemies. Gambling hells have been closed peremp- 
torily and without a day's grace, wherever the writ of the 

2 There are only first and second-class carriages in Mexico. We occu- 
pied carriages filled with workmen and peasants. We ate and slept when 
and where we could. On one occasion I induced the head of a railway- 
company to offer a special carriage to General Obregon, but the privilege 
was gratefully declined. 



v/ 



20 MEXICO OX THE VERGE 

Federal Government runs. The liquor laws are being rigor- 
ously enforced. The autonomy of the individual States — de- 
spite the undesirable results which it occasionally produces — 
is being respected by the central Government. The army has 
been materially reduced. The law everywhere is being left to 
take its course. Travelling is once more perfectly safe, and 
it looks as though in truth a new era had already begun. In 
a word, this is the first of Mexico's recent revolutions after 
which, to use one of Obregon's winged words, it is not neces- 
sary to liberate the nation from its liberators. 



I 



CHAPTER III 
Mexico in Carranza's Days 

The task which confronted Obregon and his fellow-work- 
ers as soon as they took over the reins of Government was 
truly formidable. Even a past master in statecraft might well 
shrink from undertaking it when surveying the situation, tak- 
ing stock of the available instruments and drawing up apian of 
action. To my thinking the two easiest problems of all, which 
might be settled speedily and satisfactorily with a reasonable 
measure of good will and readiness to give and take on both 
sides — foreign relations and finances — bid fair to become the 
most arduous, because complicated by a number of extrinsic 
issues. Foreign relations really mean intercourse with the 
United States Government, and that connotes compliance with 
the principal demands of the American oil companies. 

As for the task of internal reconstruction, it is literally de- 
terrent in virtue of its magnitude. On the part of the prin- 
cipal reformer it calls for a resourceful brain, an iron will and 
a considerable number of years in which to carry out a settled 
policy. And even these conditions are hardly sufficient. The 
man of destiny who has embarked on the venture requires to 
be seconded by a staff of honest, eager lieutenants who under- 
stand and sympathise with his aims and can adjust means to 
ends. And they are not easy to find. Hitherto in Mexico 
the best intentions of a leader were baffled and his programme 
altered by the exaggerated zeal, ignorance or personal ambi- 
tion of his followers. An instructive example is afforded by 
the pristine agrarian plan drafted by Emilio Zapata, the pedan- 
tic construction put upon it by his adviser Palafox, and the 
utter fiasco in which it ended. The bulk of the Mexican people 
are relatively easy to govern. They are peaceful, patient, for- 
bearing, industrious, moral and on the whole better than many 
more fortunate communities scattered over the globe. They 

21 



22 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

possess a normal number of gifted individuals, and if they 
enjoyed the benefits of a stable, honest administration and effi- 
cient educational establishments, their country would undoubt- 
edly be among the most prosperous on the planet. 

But for the moment they lack these requisites and much of 
what thev imply. And one of the consequences is the extreme 
difficulty of finding a capable, honest and well trained set of 
men to form the rank and file of the administration. As Gen- 
eral Obregon often remarked to me: "To make a code of good 
laws is child's play as compared with the selection of men who 
will administer them impartially and in the right spirit. It is 
of infinitely greater moment to have high-minded officials to 
apply the laws than to have legislators well versed in the in- 
tricacies of Roman jurisprudence to draft them." No matter 
how clear visioned the Chief of a reforming Government 
may be, he is powerless to help his people without efficient 
instruments. If the instruments break in his hands, he is no 
better off than a tyro. And that, in my opinion, is the stand- 
ing danger in Mexico where communications are difficult and 
the representatives of the local Governments necessarily enjoy 
the full measure of discretion connoted by the term "State 
sovereignty." Hence, unless the authorities of the individual 
States are actuated by the same spirit as the President, they 
may baffle, instead of furthering his most beneficent schemes 
of reform. And that has already come to pass. As the Bul- 
garian proverb picturesquely puts it: "The lesser saints are 
the ruin of God." 

No one who really knows the President will hesitate to tes- 
tify that he is the one man in the country capable of coping 
with the task of reorganisation. And if by the machinations 
of outsiders he should be kept from solving the many-sided 
problem, none of his fellow countrymen is likely to succeed in 
working it out to a satisfactory issue. That is why so many 
are eager to thwart him and bring about intervention. A faint 
and far away notion of the situation of the country in the be- 
ginning of the year 1920, and of the difference wrought in it 
since then, first by the Provisional Government of Sefior de la 
Huerta, and especially by General Obregon, may be gathered 



MEXICO IN CARRANZA'S DAYS 23 

from the impressions which I received during my travels in 
Mexico in January, February, March and May, 1920, as com- 
pared with those which have been borne in upon me since 
then. 

It is no easy matter at the best of times to gauge aright the 
internal conditions of any foreign country with a view to fore- 
casting its future and ascertaining the bearings of those con- 
ditions on its international relations. And when the country 
under examination was the Mexico of Carranza, one found 
oneself attempting to decipher the hieroglyphics of national 
and international politics. For the Republic in his days pos- 
sessed a vast variety of aspects any one of which might fasci- 
nate the observer's gaze to the exclusion or partial effacement 
of the others, warp his judgment and render his conclusions 
worthless. For the administration of that Dictator left noth- 
ing undone to take foreign visitors in hand and prepare the 
impressions which he desired to convey. And many more or 
less independent Americans from the United States, to say 
nothing of those who had axes to grind, allowed themselves 
to be hypnotised or used as semi-conscious agents of his propa- 
ganda. 

It was quite possible, under that ruler, for a foreigner, es- 
pecially if he were ignorant of the history, language and psy- 
chology of the Mexican people, to pay a flying visit to their 
fascinating country and even to reside there for a short while 
and return with a picture of its present condition and future 
outlook as different from the reality as were the distorted 
shadows of Plato's imaginary men on the cave-wall from the 
human beings hidden from the eyes of the spectators. A 
tourist might, for example, start from Vera Cruz, travel to 
Mexico City, spend a few weeks in that bright capital, visit 
Puebla and Guadalajara and return via Queretaro and Laredo 
without suspecting that there was anything organically wrong 
with the greatest Latin-American Republic. The trains which 
started at the scheduled hours might have arrived on time at 
their destination. No abnormal sights or sounds would have 
offended the eyes or grated on the ears of the stranger, seeing 
that the authorities invariably adopted special precautions for 



24 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

keeping them away. The theatres, churches, law-courts and 
cinemas were as usual open and frequented. The natives, too, 
whom the visitor met, could with truth have assured him that 
the conditions of existence were much better than they had 
been two years before, and some might give expression to their 
hope that they would gradually become normal again. And 
the serene optimism of the authorities could hardly fail to 
impress him with the belief that they were confronted with 
no prol)lcms more fateful than those which face every normally • 
growling and well governed State. 

And yet despite the sagacity of such an observer, the un- 
biased character of his testimony and the correctness of the 
facts which he alleged in support of his conclusions, the gen- 
eral picture he painted would be wholly false and misleading. 
What such a flying visitor beheld was, so to say, the front 
room that had been swept, garnished and embellished, not the 
living apartments which stamp the dwelling with its distinc- 
tive characteristics. But there were then two Mexicos, one 
on the surface — smooth, polished, lustrous like a crust of ice 
and capable for a time of bearing the weight of a frail gov- 
ernmental fabric; and the other a river underneath — dark, 
abysmal, sweeping ceaselessly onward and rapidly eroding the 
layer of ice above. That the passing onlooker should take no 
thought of the rolling stream underneath Avas but natural. 
Surprising w-as the circumstance that the architects of the 
governmental fabric should have forgotten its existence and 
neglected to take its erosive action into account. They lived 
and breathed and worked in an atmosphere of factitious con- 
tentment and serenity which was calculated to impart to the 
visitor a false sense of the stability of things. Me, too, it im- 
pressed at first but without convincing. In some ways those 
blithe administrators resembled the self-indulgent Florentines 
who were enjoying a fleeting period of wild dissolute gaiety 
while the plague was stalking through their streets, withering 
human life and turning the capital into a charnel house. But 
the Florentines were at least conscious, if heedless, of the 
danger that compas.sed them. Not so the Carranzist rough- 
hewers of Mexico's destinies. These men perceived as little, 



MEXICO IN CARRANZA'S DAYS 25 

suspected as little and were as self-complacent as the revellers 
in the palace of Babylon's last king, until the fiery finger 
burned the words of judgment and death into the wall of the 
autocratic banqueting chamber. 

Now this unrealised fact that there were two Mexicos under 
Carranza — one of them phantasmal and the other practically 
inaccessible to the average outsider — is accountable for the pa- 
thetic optimism of many more or less truth-worshipping visi- 
tors to that enchanting land of unmeasured possibilities and 
amazing contrasts, and also for the distrust with which the 
new and beneficent changes of to-day are received by the pub- 
lic. And yet had he but swerved a little from the railway lines 
and ventured into the interior, or undertaken a journey outside 
the protected zones, kept an open eye and an unbiased mind, he 
would have awakened to the startling fact that the two aspects 
of the country were as unlike each other as the masks of com- 
edy and tragedy. Every now and again the grim reality would 
be brought home to those who had eyes to see and ears to hear 
by misdeeds that left an indelible impress on the mind of the 
beholder. 

During the first of my many visits to the Republic, I had 
several opportunities of contrasting the phenomena of the two 
Mexicos. I remember the case of an Englishman who had to 
take a railway journey of some eight or ten hours from the 
capital and then to pursue his way as best he could across 
country in the dark to examine a mine. His train started 
punctually, he arrived on time, and leaving the railroad pushed 
on at night accompanied by another man and after a lonely 
journey of some hours on horseback reached his destination. 
Having accomplished his work on the following day he forth- 
with returned and arrived in the capital with nothing unpleas- 
ant or noteworthy to report. He might have Imagined him- 
self to be In his native land, so punctual were the trains and so 
safe life and property. In a word, everything appeared to be 
as satisfactory as in the much lauded era of Porfirio Diaz, 
But the very day after the Englishman's return the train on 
that same line was dynamited and some of the passengers 
killed and wounded. He was just lucky. That was all. 



26 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

A somewhat analogous experience fell to my own lot. In 
Guadalajara I announced my intention of returning to the 
United States by way of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso/ but be- 
fore ordering my ticket I made inquiries of Mexican friends 
as to whether the trains were running tolerably well and 
whether there was really as much danger from attack by the 
bandits under Villa as people affected to believe. The answer 
I received was to the effect that the alarming reports were 
much exaggerated, that Villa had announced his intention to 
lie low after the elections in July and that the line was there- 
fore practically safe. Circumstances, however, obliged me to 
postpone my journey three days. Then I ordered my ticket. 
Two days subsequently, however, I learned from the papers 
that the train in which I had meant to travel had been wrecked 
and many lives lost. This is what occurred. The train was 
accompanied by armed soldiers of whom some were in an ar- 
moured car, and others, as was their wont, seated on the roof. 
Two powerful bombs exploded under the train, blowing 
the engine to shreds, whereupon the rebels rushed up and 
opened fire. All the soldiers on the roof were quickly killed 
off and the others were prevented from issuing forth from 
their stronghold. The trembling passengers were conducted 
by the rebels to a spot a mile and a half distant, where they 
were robbed of eighty thousand Mexican pesos and of all the 
valuables on their persons. Twenty thousand pesos more were 
taken from the postal express car. The two conductors were 
hauled before Villa who shot them through the heart. The 
passengers' turn came next. Villa summarily ordered them 
all to be shot and they were duly lined up for execution. But 
just when about to give the order to fire he suddenly changed 
his mind and with tears in his eyes pardoned them, saying: 
"Since the execution of my friend General Angeles I have 
been thirsting for vengeance. That's why I blew up the train. 
Well, I have avenged his murder. Now in memory of him I 
spare your lives. You may go." 

T concluded that T was Inckv to have postponed my journey 
to Ciudad Juarez and I thereupon decided not to tempt fate by 

^ In early March, 1920. 



MEXICO IN CARRANZA'S DAYS 27 

trespassing through Villa's preserves. Travelling under the 
Carranza regime was a lottery. If one were lucky one had 
merely to rough it. The only two things certain about a jour- 
ney were discomfort and a military escort. Death or mutila- 
tion and robbery were contingencies about which one could 
never be sure. But then this disquieting incertitude was an 
essential characteristic of everything one undertook in the Re- 
public. It overhung mining, farming, trading, industry, poli- 
tics, finance, the administration and the regime. One never 
knew what the morrow might bring forth, and the first ques- 
tion people asked themselves when contemplating any kind of 
business or action, was : how will it be affected by the Unfore- 
seen? 

Thus there was ever a Damocles' sword in the shape of un- 
certainty and danger hanging by a frail thread over the heads 
of people whose avocations took them from place to place and 
of foreigners who resided beyond the city boundaries. They 
carried their lives in their hands. That there were a few rail- 
way lines over which one might travel with some degree of 
safety if special precautions were taken, it would be unfair to 
deny. But these precautions constituted a heavy price for the 
boon which was paid by the State and the travelling public. 
The former had to provide all trains with an escort of soldiers 
and the latter to put up with the loss of an entire night on a 
journey of twenty-four hours.^ On the line between Laredo 
and Mexico City, for example, the passengers had to resign 
themselves to spending the night at an intermediate station 
and resuming their journey in the morning. 

Drawbacks like these brought home to me in conclusive 
fashion the necessity of distinguishing between the show Mex- 
ico which Carranza exhibited to Ingenuous American dele- 
gates and the real Mexico as he had helped to make it and as 

2 The only line on which trains could run at night was that which con- 
nects Mexico City with Guadalajara, and even there the trains were 
escorted by soldiers. To-day there are no escorts and trains run at night 
as safely as by day. I have travelled some thousands of miles already by 
night and by day and have been lost at night in the wilds of Chihuahua, 
without experiencing any serious inconvenience. 



28 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

it was known to those natives and foreigners who made it 
their home. 

My own experience, limited in time as in space, illustrated 
the chances of journeying in safety if not in comfort, as well 
as the risks and incidentally, too, the ever-present dread which 
was felt by would-be travellers. From Puebla I desired to go 
to Oaxaca, one of the most delightful States in the Republic. 
Nearly all my Mexican friends, who, I may say, were staunch 
supporters of the Carranza Government, endeavoured to dis- 
suade me on the ground that the journey was both uncomfort- 
able and perilous. My travelling companion in particular held 
back and employed all his power of persuasion to induce me 
to abandon the plan. I finally told him that I would go at any 
rate as far as Tehuacan — about one-third of the way. Dur- 
ing our drive from the hotel in Puebla to the station we passed 
crowds of men, women and children trudging along in the 
same direction as ourselves, and as soon as we caught sight 
of the terminus we beheld a vast concourse of men, women and 
children, mostly Indians, who filled the little waiting room, 
blocked the entrance, covered the stone steps and overflowed 
into the streets. And every moment the crowd was swelling. 
We could not even get near to the door. For a railway jour- 
ney was a precious boon. And it was still so early that the 
ticket office was not open. There was no hope, therefore, of 
obtaining seats even if we should contrive to purchase tickets, 
so after having talked the matter over with a railway servant, 
we returned to the hotel and put oflf our journey until the fol- 
lowing day. The next morning we rose at three, had our 
tickets and our seats by four and waited until five for the train 
to start. In Mexico the traveller had to rise at an unearthly 
hour in the morning, first because all long distance trains 
started early in order to make up for the loss of time at night, I 
and second because the sitting accommodation in the ram- 
shackle carriages was limited whereas the number of seats sold ' 
was not. Many passengers, therefore, had to stand around or 
hang on wherever they could. 

When the train steamed into Tehuacan station I resolved 
to keep my seat and send for tickets to Oaxaca, whereupon 



MEXICO IN CARRANZA'S DAYS 29 

my companion overcame his reluctance and resigned himself to 
share my fate. The journey was supremely uncomfortable. 
The windows of the carriage were broken, the doors dis- 
jointed, the ceilings damaged, the sanitary arrangements 
shocking. But the line appeared safe enough and the train 
was not later than trains generally are in France. 

While I was in Oaxaca, however, the rebels took the sta- 
tion of Etla, about eighteen miles distant, cut off our water 
and light and caused a panic in the city. For two days I was 
without water for washing and was obliged to content myself 
with a candle after sundown. A short time previously the 
bands had attacked the town of Teliztlahuaca forty-five miles 
distant from Oaxaca, killing and wounding some persons and 
striking terror to the hearts of many more. On our return 
journey to Puebla an attempt was made to wreck our train 
near the station of Santa Catarina. Fortunately special pre- 
cautions had been taken because we had a Governor on board. 
The arrangements for derailing the train were discovered in 
the nick of time, and workmen were set to remove the ob- 
stacles and clear the line, after which we resumed our journey, 
which was completed without further interruption. These in- 
cidents occurred in March, 1920. 

Several of my planned visits were countered owing to those 
untoward conditions. Thus I had long desired to visit the 
States of Chiapas and Tabasco concerning which I had gath- 
ered various interesting data. But every one discountenanced 
the idea. While the matter was still under consideration the 
rebels there under Cal y Mayor attacked a passenger train 
from Tapachula on the Pan-American branch of the railways, 
fought the usual skirmish with the escort, killed several sol- 
diers, left a number of dead and wounded on the field, and 
destroyed properties near the railroad valued at over a hundred 
thousand pesos.^ A day or two later we learned that a power- 
ful onslaught had been made by the rebels on the capital of 
Tabasco,* and that the fight continued for two whole days, 
resulting in considerable casualties to both sides. In view of 

3 Cf. Excelsior, 3rd March, 1920. 
* Cf. El Universal, sth March, 1920. 



30 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

these "abnormal" conditions, it was put to me that I had bet- 
ter postpone my visits until order was permanently restored. 
What that vague delay implied in years no one was rash 
enough to conjecture. But I was enabled to reach the con- 
clusion that if the regime continued the interval would not be 
very brief, by the circumstance that President Carranza and 
his advisers had decided to introduce armoured cars provided 
with machine guns and to build blockhouses of concrete at 
intervals of less than three miles along the principal railway 
routes, at an estimated cost of three thousand pesos for each 
blockhouse. ° 

Cf. El Informador de Guadalajara, 9th March, 1920. and Excelsior, 1st 
March, 1920. 



CHAPTER IV 
Mexico's Last Dictator 

Whithersoever I wandered in Mexico the same two face^ 
alternately appeared, the one smilingly turned towards for- 
eigners athwart the golden haze that hung over the principal 
cities and the other, basilisk-like, gazing at the ill-starred in- 
habitants whom it fascinated with terror. I strove to obtain 
a direct insight into the actual conditions of the Republic, un- 
influenced by the interpretations of other people, and with this 
object in view I travelled about as any member of the public 
might, mingling with the crowds, visiting the pestilential 
abodes of the poor, the outcasts and the criminals, conversing 
with the Indians and keeping aloof during the first period of 
my sojourn from politicians, cabinet ministers, journalists, 
consuls and other people who had specific interests to promote 
or protect. 

It was further my fixed resolve to keep aloof from the gov- 
erning authorities altogether, unless I had good grounds for 
believing that a meeting between them and me would further 
the cause of a real understanding between Mexico and the 
English-speaking nations. As such an adequate reason I 
should have recognised either an assurance from some friend 
of President Carranza or of Sefior Luis Cabrera that these 
rulers, aware of the straits, national and international, to 
which their policy had reduced the country, were willing to 
discuss the whole question with me with a view to reaching a 
basis for settlement on acceptable terms, or else a direct invi- 
tation from either of them to see me. 

On several previous occasions I had opened pourparlers be- 
tween two governments at odds with each other for the pur- 
pose of discussing the subject of their misunderstanding freely 
and without diplomatic mental reservations, and the results 
generally recompensed the effort. The last occasion was in 

31 



32 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

the Summer of 19 14, when Greece and Turkey were prepar- 
ing to wage war on each other. After several journeys be- 
tween Athens and Constantinople and long debates with Talaat 
Bey and the Grand Vizier on the one hand and Venizelos, on 
the other hand, it was my good fortune to hinder hostilities 
and to get the two governments to agree to a Treaty which 
the Grand Vizier and Venizelos were to sign in my house in 
Brussels. The Greek Premier actually started for Brussels 
and had reached Munich when the quarrel between Austria 
and Serbia and its menacing upshot compelled him to halt. 
And I harboured the hope that a similar arrangement might 
be come to with the Carranza administration, provided that 
its chiefs were conscious of the difficulties and dangers that 
compassed them round. Some of their own friends assured 
me that they were alive to the existence of rocks and shoals 
ahead and would welcome any feasible change of tack which 
would enable them to steer clear of these. 

One day a gentleman who had rendered sterling services to 
the Carranzist cause informed me that Sefior Cabrera and 
the President had expressed a wish to have a talk with me. 
Accordingly I went and called on them both. Seiior Cabrera 
welcomed me cordially, ushered me into his cabinet and began 
a most interesting conversation which was largely a monologue. 
Mexico's actual condition, future outlook and general policy 
were dealt with exhaustively as were also the prospects of the 
Carranzist regime. And each topic was handled by the 
speaker, who showed a complete grasp of the theoretical side 
of each question, in the style of a brilliant special pleader. 
If Sefior Cabrera had graduated in one of the best Sophist 
schools of ancient Athens, he could not have expounded his 
theses more speciously. It was one of the most masterly ex- 
poses I ever listened to. The impression it left on my mind 
was that if the case were thus clearly and suasively presented 
to an intelligent jury or to a foreign government directed by 
a democratic theorist, it would inevitably carry conviction and 
bring forth practical fruits. I further perceived, by piecing to- 
gether various data which I had received from other mostly 
trustworthy sources, that Senor Carranza had worked out a! 



'^ 



MEXICO'S LAST DICTATOR 33 

comprehensive, rounded and ingenious plan, the object of 
which was to obtain the official recognition of Great Britain 
and France and to establish his regime on a stable foundation. 

But having come from England, France and the United 
States where the angle at which Mexican affairs were consid- 
ered was widely different from that of Senor Cabrera, I could 
not blink the fact that he was striving after the unattainable. 

The President received me most affably. He was more com- 
municative and less reserved than was his wont. His personal 
appearance, bordering on the venerable, challenged immediate 
respect, and the chamber with its subdued lights, mellow 
colours and atmosphere of tranquillity served as a fitting frame 
for the patriarchal figure with the flowing grey beard and the 
emphatic words uttered in firm deep tones. On the writing 
table at which he sat was a large inkstand with a silver figure 
of Justice. "Do you see that figure?" he asked at the close of 
our interview. "You know what it represents?" "Yes, it is 
the figure of Justice." "Well, I frequently gaze at that little 
statue which suggests thoughts and queries that nerve me to 
new efforts for the establishment of justice in the land. For 
justice is the one thing necessary. It is the cement that will 
unite the various elements of the population. Yes, in face of 
that little figure I often sit and meditate. ..." I hoped he 
was sincere were it only by a process of self -hypnotism. 

There was, however, something artificial, something his- 
trionic in the whole scene which reminded me of my first 
mission to President Paul Kruger, for the purpose of ascer- 
taining the conditions on which he would consent to terminate 
the Boer War. Him, too, I found in a room which formed 
a perfect frame for the clumsy figure of the rugged old Cal- 
vinist. A table, three chairs and a carpet on which he freely 
expectorated was all the furniture of the apartment. Oom 
Paul sat in a chair, with a huge folio Bible on his knees, 
apparently poring over one of the books of the Pentateuch 
which he read through his vast goggles. Having marked the 
page before closing the volume, he pushed the glasses on to 
his forehead, rose slowly, coughed, spat out on the floor and 
extended his hand to greet me. Although my reception by 



34 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

Senor Carranza was not really staged, I could feel that he was 
intent on producing a certain well defined impression and that 
perceptible effort marred somewhat the general effect of his 
assurances. 

He, too, spoke on the same lines, occasionally using the 
same phrases as Don Luis Cabrera. Having sketched his pol- 
icy, he summarised its good results in pithy well chosen terms 
and with a degree of apparent detachment which befitted a 
successful statesman who, having achieved his life-work, could 
afford to view it in the dry light of history. He certainly had 
a clear-cut policy, showed a complete grasp of some of its bear- 
ings and displayed an intimate knowledge of the tactics by 
which he was resolved to carry it out. There was only one 
flaw in his reckoning, one unknown X in his forecast — but it 
was of the very essence of the problem. I could not convince 
him that the ship of State of which he was the master had 
already drifted into dangerous waters from which it was be- 
yond his power to pilot her without altering her tack. He 
denied that there was a single shoal or rock on all his course 
which had not been carefully sounded and charted. "Plain 
sailing," was his conclusion. 

I had heard those words on several other historic occasions 
and I could therefore gauge their value. Once they were ut- 
tered by the chiefs of the Constitutional Democratic party in 
Russia when I urged them to support Count Witte's Cabinet 
for some six or eight months and promised in his name that 
they would receive the reins of power. And when having en- 
countered an inflexible non-possumus, I observed that a for- 
midable reaction would ensue, if they persisted in their refusal, 
they answered that in Russia no reaction was thenceforward 
possible. "It is all plain sailing now," they said. At another 
historical conjuncture — before the first Balkan War — I went 
to Constantinople with a simple, definite proposal from a 
neighbouring Government which, had it been accepted, would 
have warded off the catastrophe. After having considered 
the matter for two days and hesitated for twenty-four hours, 
the Grand Vizier and the Minister of Foreign Affairs felt 
unable to accept my offer. "Have you no misgivings then 



MEXICO'S LAST DICTATOR 35 

about the immediate future?" I asked. "No, none," answered 
the Minister. "No fear of troubles brewing?" "Local 
troubles, yes. We know that Greece is fermenting, but we 
also know that she will have to sip her own brew. We have 
all the threads of Balkan politics in our hands and are not ap- 
prehensive of the skein getting ravelled." "In a word, it is 
all plain sailing?" I asked. "It is," he answered, "plain sail- 
ing." About eighteen months later in the foyer of the Vienna 
Opera, a man who was seated arose hurriedly and addressed 
me: "Do you not recognise me?" "Yes," I replied, "you are 
the Turkish ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs." "I wish to say 
that since I last met you I have often regretted that I did not 
accept your proposal. Turkey is ruined now. Did you know 
at the time that war would be declared so soon?" "I did. 
And it was because it was coming so soon that I had to press 
for your answer at once." "Why in heaven's name did you 
not tell me so or at least give me a hint?" "Because it was a 
secret which I was not authorised to reveal. Besides I gave 
you as much of a hint as I dared. But you told me that 
it was all plain sailing." "Alas, poor Turkey!" he ex- 
claimed. 

With Don Venustiano it was also plain sailing. He de- 
scried no really formidable difficulties. If I spoke of the 
sentiments of a large section of the English-speaking peoples, 
he met my answer with the statement that Great Britain's dis- 
position was friendly and that a British Minister would shortly 
be sent to Mexico City, after official recognition had been ac- 
corded. As for the United States, the relations between Wash- 
ington and Mexico City were never so cordial. All that was 
still needed to set the seal of stability on them was an American 
Ambassador who would present Mexico and Mexican affairs 
to his countrymen as they really are and not as if he were in 
quest of pretexts for intervention. "And in the domestic at- 
mosphere too, all is serene and you discern no cloud at all on 
the horizon?" I asked, convinced that my questioning was 
bootless. "No, none." And then after a moment's reflection : 
"I do perceive one, only one cloudlet, in the shape of possible 
troubles after the elections. When that has drifted away, as 



36 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

it certainly will, the horizon will l:>e perfectly clear and tran- 
quil." 

I left the presence of the Mexican Dictator, as I had left 
the presence of the Russian Kadets and that of the Grand 
Vizier at the Sublime Porte, with a pang of regret, akin to 
that which I might feel if I beheld a child playing on the very 
edge of a precipice and were unable to reach it in time to save 
its life. 

That was on the 3rd of March, and nine weeks later — on 
the /th of May — President Carranza was a fugitive from 
Mexico City, a doomed man. Some people are pursued by 
Fate. Don Venustiano pursued and overtook it. 



I 



CHAPTER V 
Education of the People 

Having myself studied and graduated in several European 
Universities and been Professor of Comparative Philology, 
Sanskrit and Oriental history, I naturally felt an interest in 
the educational problem in Mexico, for upon the solution it 
receives the destinies of the people depend. Learning my de- 
sire, Senor Cabrera kindly put me in communication with the 
Rector of the University, Don Jose Macias, on whom I called 
one morning, accompanied by a foreign prelate of the Roman 
Catholic Church. We were received with that perfect cour- 
tesy which characterises the social intercourse of educated 
Mexicans. None the less it turned out to be a most amusing 
experience, a little comedy of errors. The Rector, assuming 
that we were from the United States, assured us that we 
would recognise in the institutions and various landmarks of 
progress in his country mere copies of originals in our own. 
"The United States," he went on, "is the standard-bearer of 
culture and from her accumulated stores Mexico is drawing 
freely and contracting a moral debt which she can only ac- 
knowledge without repaying. But her gratitude is profound. 
She welcomes citizens of the great Northern Republic whose 
various dissenting preachers are sowing the good seed on a 
fertile soil" . . . and saying this he bowed to the prelate. 
I listened without committing myself, but expressed the hope 
that in the process he described the University at least would 
find it worth while to retain some features of its own distinct 
from those of the United States. Education, after all, ought 
to be adjusted to the needs of the people, which are not wholly 
identical with those of foreigners. Adaptation, I said, ought 
to be substituted for imitation. 

That elaborate eulogy of the United States by one of Car- 
ranza's advisers and friends reminded me of an amusing ex- 

37 



38 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

perience which I had had years before with the late Prince 
Ghika when he first came as Minister-Plenipotentiary of the 
King of Roumania to Russia, in the reign of Alexander III. 
I met him at a dinner in the house of Prince Orbeliani and as 
French was the language of the salons the diplomatist had 
no sure criteria by which to distinguish the Russian from the 
foreign guests. Approaching me after dinner, he discanted 
with rapture on the beauties of Russian literature which he 
regretted his inability to read in the original and then passed 
on to the praise of the Tsardom and the Tsar — to all of which 
I listened with due attention and cold acquiescence, reluctant 
to tell him that I disagreed with his appreciation of the Tsar- 
dom and its doings. A few days later Prince Ghika met me 
at a court function and having in the meanwhile ascertained 
that I was not a Russian and that I had published over a 
pseudonym a tremendous indictment of the Tsardom and its 
works,^ he apologized profusely for his mistake, asked me 
to treat his remarks at the dinner as purely diplomatical, al- 
luded in complimentary terms to my writings which he had 
read and then we both laughed heartily at his misplaced com- 
pliments. 

A similar development was brought about in the case of the 
Mexican Rector by an observation which I purposely made, 
implying that I came from over the Atlantic. "Then, you are 
not an American?" he asked in a flutter. "No," I replied. 
"Oh, oh, really. But what then, may I venture to ask, is your 
nationality?" "British." "Indeed. I am truly delighted. 
The British are our best foreign friends. Well, in this repub- 
lic you will find that the people receive your countrymen with 
open arms and warm hearts. The British are" . . . and a 
string of compliments followed. Then came the query. "But 
your companion is a United States preacher surely?" "No," 
I answered, "he is not." "Is he a Baptist?" "No." "A 
Presbyterian?" "No. He is a Catholic." "A Catholic!" 
repeated the Rector. "My God! Not a Roman Catholic!" 
"Yes, a Roman Catholic prelate." The Rector was overcome 

^Russian Characteristics, by E. B. Lanin. 



EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 39 

by the announcement. For he had been extolling the works 
of the non-Catholic American preachers to the skies. . . . 

Don Jose then took us to various schools and confined him- 
self to pointing out the peculiar features of the buildings. But 
in the medical school I fancied I could discern signs of real 
vitality. There the students were hard at work, keenly bent on 
qualifying themselves for their profession, and the head of 
their institution struck me as a man of extraordinary energy 
and scientific method who endeavoured successfully to com- 
municate his own spirit to the young men under his charge. 
That and the mining school were the only educational 
establishments in the country where to my own knowledge 
sound instruction was imparted and real progress was being 
made. 

I asked the Rector whether I could obtain a copy of the 
University charter. He answered that it was being drafted. 
When I remarked that what was being drafted could only be 
a new charter and that there must have been one in existence 
before the decision was taken to supersede it with a new one, 
he agreed with me and promised to let me have a copy together 
with certain other documents. He undertook to send them to 
me that very evening. On the following day I reminded him 
of his promise and he forthwith renewed it. Several days 
later it was again reiterated. But I never received either the 
charter or the documents and I ought, perhaps, to add that I 
never expected them. 

Education in Mexico has always been an arduous problem 
to tackle, owing mainly to the lack of funds and also to the 
scarcity of qualified pedagogues. A further difficulty arises 
from the long distances and inadequate means of communi- 
cation. I visited many schools in the south and centre and 
was very favourably impressed by the aptitudes and eagerness 
to learn which the children everywhere displayed and with the 
assiduity and zeal of the female teachers. 

The educational problem is largely a matter of funds and 
the circumstance that it has never been solved even approxi- 
mately in a country where a vast stream of wealth is flowing 
steadily beyond the frontiers into foreign lands is a standing 



y 



40 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

condemnation of the methods of exploiting Mexico's natural 
resources that now prevail. 

There is probably no social class in the Republic which en- 
dures such intense physical and moral suffering as that whose 
members devote their lives to the upbringing of the young. 
From outset to finish they live from hand to mouth, never rid 
themselves of the gnawing anxieties of indigence or of the 
pain of wounded self-respect. The teachers were badly paid 
at best and were in some places not paid at all for months on 
end. This brand of unmerited indignity and semi-starvation 
inflicts on people who can think an abiding and festering 
wound. In some cases, I was credibly informed, schoolmis- 
tresses, stung by hunger and confronted with despair, sold 
their lx)dies in order to save their lives. Others sacrificed 
their lives in order not to lose their souls, while billions of 
pesos were being taken out of the country to swell the dividends 
of foreign companies. One can readily visualise the successive 
stages by which hungry, humbled and exasperated teachers 
reached the position that the redistribution of wealth, how- 
ever effected, is a meritorious work and that there are certain 
circumstances in which private property may become a pub- 
lic crime. It is not that these theories have ever been openly 
taught in the schools. By no means. But they were indi- 
rectly inculcated by events and episodes known to all and well 
understood by the quick impressible minds of Mexican chil- 
dren. There is no more efficacious means of converting a 
people to Bolshevism than that of keeping them half starved, 
badly housed, without hope of bettering their lot and flaunting 
in their faces the wealth of their country as it passes them 
by to the well filled treasure houses of supercilious outlanders. 
Education in the highest meaning of the term has hitherto 
been an unknown discipline in Mexico. It is only now being 
introduced under Gen. Obregon and the Rector of the Univer- 
sity Jose Vasconcelos. The conditions were adverse to the 
experiment. Instruction there is of various kinds and degrees, 
primary, intermediate, superior and technical, and in some 
branches such as mathematics, engineering and surgery it com- 
pares most favourably with that of Spain. But the training 



EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 41 

of the mind and the building of character are hardly ever even 
attempted. It would be a miracle where it otherwise in a 
country which has long been plunged by imposed hardship and 
poverty into internecine strife and in a society where primeval 
instincts were being constantly provoked to break through con- 
ventional restraints. And yet the raw material for education 
is excellent. Indeed, it could hardly be better. Among the 
Indians I found self-restraint, patience and genuine morality 
more widespread and developed than among any other ele- 
ment of the population. Their moral and physical natures are 
well adjusted. The good humour of the adults and the excel- 
lent behaviour of the children in railway trains and at play, 
their amazing self-command and the devotion of the mothers 
to their offspring under the stress of want, disease and black 
despair are calculated to make a profound impression on the 
observant foreigner. Nor could a greater contrast be well 
imagined than that between the simple, cheerful, spontaneous 
hospitality of the impecunious Indian and the magniloquent 
verbal generosity of some of the middle-class foreigners which 
serves as a fanciful screen for egotism and meanness. 

Mexican history is at any rate in parts a fanciful narrative 
which stands in a more remote relationship to recorded events 
of the past than did German history before the World War. 
It has been coloured, bowdlerised and embellished with a view 
to awakening or creating a sense of artificial patriotism in the 
young generation. 

Towards the end of the year 1919 the National University 
received several requests from abroad for text books of Mexi- 
can history and was greatly embarrassed thereby. For it felt 
obliged to treat them as the Rector Macias treated my request 
for the University charter, and for kindred reasons. It was 
recognised that none of the existing histories was worthy of 
the name. By way of remedying this defect the University 
decided not exactly to produce a trustworthy text book but to 
stimulate Mexican writers to compile a book on national his- 
tory with all the impartiality and the research required in 
works of this kind.^ 

2£/ Universal, 24th March, 1920, 



42 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

"In Mexico," an expert writes, "one might almost affirm 
that no veritably historical research work has ever been done. 
The narrative of past events is always employed by the com- 
pilers of our history to vent their political passions, their in- 
terest-born bias or their sentimental leanings. . . . We have 
succumbed above all else to the infantile vanity of creating 
heroes and inventing epopees. In this way the national story 
has come to be a sort of golden legend wherein the profile of 
truth disappears among the gilt and changeful reflections of 
fancy. . . . The people continue to be entertained with a de- 
ceptive picture of our past, whereby the patriotic conception is 
falsified inasmuch as it is made to rest upon a fragile web of 
sparkling gewgaws. Defeats are denied, downfalls dissimu- 
lated, miseries hidden, the seamy side of life, which is perhaps 
the largest part of it, is kept from the view of the pupils, 
whereby their character is weakened with a paradisaical and 
make-believe vision of existence." ^ 

All those evils are now being remedied, the only limits set 
to the reforms being those which lack of funds imposes. Presi- 
dent Obregon's careful attention to the people's needs has 
been especially devoted to the most pressing of them all — edu- 
cation. And with the valuable assistance of Sefior Vascon- 
celos he has already worked wonders in combating illiteracy 
and spreading sane ideas about civic obligations. He is not 
only painfully aware of the root defects of education in the 
Republic, but he has been at great pains to discover and apply 
efficacious means of remedying them. 

Among his many utterances to me on the subject that whIcK 
made the deepest dent in my mind and memory was this : "The 
base of our education at present is narrow, and therefore un- 
ethical. We teach and train and equip our youth to wage the 
struggle for existence with the sole object of winning, and win- 
ning at the cost of others. Now that, I maintain, is immoral. 
Individual egotism may be a necessity, but if you make it the 
root of all social organisation, it is sterile, nay ruinous. You 
cannot bring up a nation and render it prosperous on such doc- 
trines. They are superlatively immoral. Mind, I would not 

» El Universal, 24th March, 192a 



EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 43 

discourage the quality necessary and adequate to enable a youth 
to fight his way upwards. Indeed, that is one of the functions 
of education. But I would have him taught that his duty does 
not begin and end there. It extends to his neighbour, and his 
neighbour is the foreigner as well as the Mexican. He may and 
must compete with that neighbour, no doubt to the utmost, but 
it behooves him to do this fairly, and he should aid and second 
that neighbour whenever he can do this without damaging his 
own interests. For he has a duty to perform to that community 
which is his own country, and also a further duty toward the 
much larger community, which is the entire human race. Now 
these obligations are never inculcated upon him at school or 
elsewhere. To-day the boy and the young man are morally 
isolated — ^they resemble snails, each one shut up in his own 
shell. That is the basic error of our educational system. 
What I want is to have every unit brought up to feel duties of 
responsibility not merely toward himself and his family, but 
also toward his country and humanity at large. It is not 
enough for him to be a good Mexican. He must also be a 
good citizen of the world." 

Besides himself studying the grave defects of the educa- 
tional system in his own country, General Obregon has com- 
municated his zeal and interest to a number of his fellow 
workers with a view to changing it radically, profiting by the 
data of foreign pedagogic research and experience and creat- 
ing the most efficient educational establishments possible 
throughout the length and breadth of the Republic. "The 
money spent in thus qualifying our people to play a desirable 
part in the progress of their country and of humanity will be 
the most profitable investment of the nation," he remarked to 
me one day. We talked this subject over again during our 
travels and I was amazed at the thorough grasp of it which 
his remarks displayed. Among other aspects of it, he has 
made a study of the system adopted by the Japanese, and 
while his main idea is to adjust educational methods to the 
needs and strivings of his own fellow countrymen, he is ready 
to avail himself to the full of the experience of all advanced 
peoples. To-day he has prepared a complete system of educa- 



U MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

tional reform which, if in the concrete it bears a fair resem- 
blance to the detailed description of it which he unfolded to 
me will unfailingly regenerate the people and raise them to a 
high cultural and economic level. "Education," he observed to 
me one day when sailing on the Pacific, "is the very basis of 
freedom, justice and of all the other ideals for which our people 
are inarticulately longing. It is by means of education that 
we shall transform the state of chronic civil war into an era 
of peace, productivity and prosperity. The training of the 
young generation in accordance with the most approved meth- 
ods and with due consideration for their special needs should 
be the chief care of every Government worthy of the name. 
Educational methods, good or bad, make or mar a people. 
That is the lesson taught by Germany's bitter experience. 
Compare the schools and universities in that country before 
and after the Bismarckian era. The results in each case speak 
for themselves. If I am elected President my first and endur- 
ing care will be to see that the new generation of Mexicans is 
fitted to play a worthy part in the advancement of their country 
and of humanity. No higher ambition could attract any man 
who has the will and the power to serve his country." 

One night * General Obregon and I were returning from a 
visit to the capital of the State of Tlascala. The rain was 
coming down in torrents. The thunder claps were deafening. 
The darkness was impenetrable. From the old Aztec city of 
Cholula"^ we were slowly driving in a special tramway car 
into Puebla. The vehicle was without any inside lights. Oc- 
casionally a dazzling lightning flash would enable us to catch 
a glimpse of each other's features for a second and to note 
the inroads of the slanting rain. And during all that interval, 
from the beginning to the end of that journey, General Obre- 
gon unfolded to me his views upon education in general and 
upon the special needs of the Mexican people, as he under- 
stood them. I confess I was amazed at his vision, his knowl- 
edge of detail and his eye for the essential. I regretted that 
his words were not recorded as they were uttered. 

* 1 2th Aupiist. 

8 In the State of Puebla. 



EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 45 

As luck would have it, however, on our arrival in Puebla, 
the professors and students of the University — a most impos- 
ing edifice erected by the Jesuits — were waiting in the great 
hall to receive him. A student — one of the young men 
brought up in the nesw-fangled notions — delivered a pompous 
speech in praise of revolutions against the capitalists who man- 
age to survive these and on the necessity of turning over a new 
leaf. His speech was not relished by the General, who there- 
upon arose and unfolded his own ideas in simple, terse and 
suasive language which came as a salutary electric shock to 
the academic body. "Our whole educational system," he said, 
"from base to summit is an anachronism and must be abol- 
ished. We must begin at the bottom and work up to the top, 
adjusting instruction and training to the needs of our time 
and our country. What we require to-day is men who can 
carry on the struggle for life not, indeed, without strenuous- 
ness and perseverance, but in a spirit of fair play and scrupu- 
lous respect for the rights of others. Character is the spiritual 
essence of a man. That once formed all else is easy. As 
for instruction we need establishments in all the rural districts 
to teach the people how to till the soil to the greatest advan- 
tage, we need schools of crafts and arts in which to train 
young men to revive the lost industries and introduce new 
ones, we require schools of commerce, of trades, and colleges 
for the preparation of consuls and consular agents, and all of 
them with special reference to the needs of our people. What 
the country now wants and has long yearned for is not abstract 
theories, not civil war or revolution, but peace, work and pros- 
perity. The era of violence and bloodshed is over for good. 
To seek to continue or to renew it would be to ruin the nation. 
It now behooves us all to pull ourselves together and apply the 
sum of our energies to productive work. That is our one an- 
chor to salvation. It will need a tremendous effort, but the 
youth of the country will have to put forth that effort and 
their teachers must encourage and direct it." 

Those were some of the general ideas. When he entered 
into details and unfolded his plan to men who had presumably 
made education the special study of their lives and whose 



46 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

theories he was now pulverising, genial excitement and spon- 
taneous applause were hardly distinguishable from tumult. 
Professors rose, left their places, clapped their hands and 
shouted "hurrah." For several minutes he was the recipient 
of an improvised ovation, and his motor when he was leaving 
was surrounded by enthusiastic young men offering themselves 
as coadjutors in the patriotic work. 

In a word, Mexico since May, 1920, has emerged from the 
Slough of Despond. The overthrow of the Carranza regime 
closed an era of chaos and confusion, and the advent of Gen- 
eral Obregon to power marks the beginning of a new era. All 
the counts in the exaggerated and coloured indictment against 
the whole nation, — for it was aimed at the whole nation — so 
eagerly gleaned and so carefully filed by Mr. Fall, have be- 
come matters of history. They have ceased to characterise the 
Republic of to-day. Many of them owed their existence to 
the questionable lengths to which the rights of private prop- 
erty when conflicting with the needs of the community were 
carried, whereas all the reforms alluded to and others are being 
laboriously effected not only without the help, but in spite of 
the vigorous opposition of those who profited by those privi- 
leges. Mexico is being financially starved at a moment when 
she needs money more imperatively than ever before. And 
those who treat her thus are of the country which has received 
most of her wealth. It is a matter of supreme import that 
this deciding transformation of the Republic should become 
widely known. Secretary Hughes showed his appreciation of 
it by implicitly shelving most of the recommendations of Mr. 
Fall. That was a manly act worthy of its author. Unhappily 
he undid it by laying down a condition which being unaccept- 1 
able to Mexico may ultimately have for its effect the revival ■ 
of all the terms proposed by his eminent colleague. Mexico 
has fulfilled the essential requisites for recognition. Her 
qualifications have been weighed and found adequate by nu- 
merous foreign States, including such Powers as Japan, Italy, 
the Argentine, Spain and Germany. They would on their in- 
trinsic merits be recognised as fully by Great Britain and 
France, were these countries willing to deal with the matter 



EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE 47 

without reference to extrinsical considerations. The decision 
consequently hinges on the United States and all the full con- 
sequences of its adverse character are ascribed by Mexicans to 
extrinsic motives. 



CHAPTER VI 
Preparing the Atmosphere 

Public opinion on the Mexican outlook — such opinion as 
looks to established facts for its warranty — cannot truly be 
said to exist in the United States. The main factors of the 
situation as outlined in the foregoing pages are still unknown 
to the bulk of the nation, are indeed, one must reluctantly add, 
diligently concealed from it behind a tissue of fantastic no- 
tions woven by interested individuals and corporations for the 
purpose of working up a body of anti-Mexican sentiment suffi- 
ciently strong to enable them to carry their policy forward to 
a successful issue. The painful care thus taken to keep the 
truth from the great and generous people of the United States 
and to put it on the wrong track constitutes a high and well 
merited tribute to its innate sense of justice. 

The public of the United States, known for its magnani- 
mous impulses and its fellow-feeling for struggling peoples 
and in whose national life the spirit of fair play has grown 
to be one of the most potent elements, is being effectually de- 
prived of the helpful guidance and check which its moral sym- 
pathies and political action would have drawn from a knowl- 
edge of the true facts. It is being blindfolded systematically 
by organised groups of industrial and political interests whose 
enormous influence is equalled only by the powerful tempta- 
tion to employ it for ends which are anything but humani- 
tarian. Their press propaganda is without parallel in history 
for subtlety, plausibility and efficacy. In this way the con- 
trolling and organising force in the conduct of the great Re- 
public is kept in the hands of those few men, who being ex- 
posed to tremendous temptations and lacking the moral stam-j 
ina to resist, are the least fitted to employ it. It is not neces-1 
sary to stigmatise this mode of action as self-seeking or un- 
scrupulous in order to discern the sinister consequences to the 

48 



PREPARING THE ATMOSPHERE 49 

entire community with which it is fraught. One of these is 
the saddling of the people of the United States with political 
and moral responsibility for acts which are cardinally repug- 
nant to its inner nature and which stain its history with in- 
delible blots. 

The average citizen of that great Republic and one or other 
of the professional moulders of "public opinion" as well, hon- 
estly believe that all the grave charges hurled against the Car- 
ranza regime are equally applicable to the Obregon adminis- 
tration. They hold that the long sequence of volcanic out- 
bursts which marked the revolutionary period to which Gen- 
eral Obregon put an end is being still perpetuated and that 
nothing has changed save the stern determination of the Re- 
publican Administration to strike out a policy of militant 
righteousness and make the new Continent safe for the latter- 
day Saints. And it is difficult for them to think otherwise 
seeing that the sources of information are being systematically 
adjusted for the purpose of creating this belief. One of the 
most influential newspaper editors in the United States, — a 
man who prides himself on his painstaking accuracy and 
scrupulous fairness — gave vent to his amazement on learning 
that I was returning to Mexico with my family. "No lady 
is safe in that restless Republic," he informed me, "and no 
foreign man either. Your only hope and that of all humanely 
thinking people is that before the danger has become real, the 
United States troops will be on the spot to protect you." 
"Have you not heard then," I asked, "that the new President 
is an enlightened reformer, has inaugurated a policy friendly 
to foreigners, is busy meting out justice to all and that life and 
property are as safe there as here?" "I have heard of Gen- 
eral Obregon but I understand that he is a second edition of 
Carranza and is moving along the same lines as his predeces- 
sor." "Then you have heard the reverse of the truth," I re- 
torted, "and you would do well to inquire anew into the facts." 
"Well, may I begin my investigation by asking you a pointed 
question which is a touchstone of your expose. You are ac- 
quainted with most of President Obregon's relatives. Tell me 
truly, how many of them has he appointed to lucrative posts 



50 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

in the Government?" "Not one," I answered. "None of them 
has ever occupied any position in his or any other administra- 
tion. They are earning their livelihood by dint of hard work 
and living the modest lives to which they have been accus- 
tomed. One of his brothers did present himself for election 
to the governorship of his native State a few years ago when 
General Obregon, being War Minister, might have used his 
influence to turn the balance in his favour but steadfastly de- 
clined to give him the least support, whereupon his brother's 
antagonist won the election." "Is that really so?" "It is." 
"Well, I never would have believed it had you not told me. It 
certainly runs counter to everything I have heard about him." 
I expressed my pleasure at having nailed one falsehood to the 
counter and my friend who derives most of his information 
about Mexico from the interested corporations terminated the 
conversation with the characteristic remark: "You have con- 
vinced me that there is at least one honest man in Mexico 
and that, no doubt, is something but it is not very much." 

More interesting was a talk which I had with one of the 
foremost lawyers of the United States — a man who stands 
well with members of the Harding Administration and also 
with those of the Democratic party. He accepted what I told 
him of the new era in Mexico and displayed a keen and sym- 
pathetic interest in President Obregon. In fact he grew hope- 
ful of the Southern Republic. But one day after having spent 
nearly a week in Washington he approached me with a solemn 
face and said : "You must be very careful when you go back 
to that country. Obregon is all right of course, but he is not 
alone. He has a curious set of people around him who stick 
at nothing and they would make short work of you, if they 
once conceived a dislike for you. Listen now to what hap- 
pened to one of your own countrymen this very year. I got 
the story in Washington and from an excellent source. 

"There was an Englishman in Mexico City, I forget his 
name but it was something like Danall or Dalinn. He was in- 
vited to travel with General Obregon and became a staunch 
friend of his. The two were often together and Obregon 
thought a great deal of the Englishman. But some of the 



PREPARING THE ATMOSPHERE 51 

other members of the Administration took a dislike to him. 
Well, one day the foreign guest was invited to partake of their 
hospitality, I cannot say whether it was dinner or lunch, but 
it turned out to be the last meal on God's earth which the un- 
suspecting stranger took. The poor fellow died of poisoning 
a few hours later. Be warned in time therefore. By the way, 
did you ever meet that EngHshman or hear of him?" "Yes," 
I answered, "I did, and curiously enough I received the news 
of his death from Warsaw and from Paris a fortnight ago 
through a Russian Princess here. The details, as is natural, 
were slightly at variance with those which you have just nar- 
rated — the Englishman after the meal dropped dead in the 
University Club, in Mexico City. His name too was a little 
different — it was Dr. E. J. Dillon. So, as you see, the story 
has gone the round of two Continents already and has reached 
me, the principal dramatis persona^ from both sources." "Do 
you really mean it ?" "I do, and the lady in question will bear 
me out. It was through her that I got a glimpse of the letters 
that conveyed the news. Don't you now think that your kind 
admonition to be careful in Mexico may be useful to yourself 
in Washington?" "Well, indeed you surprise me," the honest 
lawyer added. 

One fine June evening at a dinner table in New York at 
which some of the most influential and wealthy representatives 
of the foreign companies in Mexico were assembled, the con- 
versation turned naturally upon the condition of Mexico at 
present. I gave it as my opinion that everything there had un- 
dergone a radical change since the day of the triumph of the 
revolution over the Carranza regime and that much of what 
had been true of the Republic down to that date was wholly 
false to-day. Thereupon one of the magnates assured us all that 
I was speaking as an optimistic foreigner, mistaking wishes for 
realities and that the country was at that moment on the verge 
of a revolution which would sweep away Obregon and his 
regime as thoroughly as he had swept away his predecessor. 
I insisted that the era of revolutions is closed but only two of 
the individuals present paid heed to my statement and after- 
wards requested me to give them further particulars. One of 



52 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

the others said : "Well but you who know the President per- 
sonally must surely be aware that he is a doomed man. He 
is as you know suffering from an incurable disease which will 
carry him off very shortly." "No. I do not know anything 
of the kind. Neither does his physician who is a close friend 
of mine. General Obregon is strong and active and hard- 
working and looks as though he might outlive your children," 
I replied. "Well, but I understand that his doctor says the 
contrary. At least I have heard so." 

In New York one morning towards the end of June, a pro- 
fessional gentleman whose work lies almost entirely in the 
world of journalism and letters came to see me and inquired: 
"Who in your opinion will be PresidentObregon's successor? I 
have been asked the question and I am very anxious to answer it 
but cannot. You are more likely to know than any of my ac- 
quaintances. Who is it ?" "But the question is not actual yet/* 
I replied, "nor is it likely to become so for three years and in 
the meanwhile the bases for an answer may change many 
times. Why should your friends look so far ahead?" "Oh 
then you have not heard that President Obregon's doctors have 
given him less than four months to live, four calendar 
months? That explains the actuality of the query and the 
curiosity of those Americans who are interested in Mexico." 
"Well then tell them from me that that story is stale enough 
to have died of old age last year. It was circulating in Mexico 
City in July, 1920. Bets were made by foreign residents, some 
of whom I know personally, that Obregon would never take 
possession of the Presidency and those bets were maintained 
to my knowledge down to the very night on which he swore 
fidelity to the Constitution. Yet he is still alive and hearty," 

Atnong the passengers of the steamer on which I travelled 
from New York to Vera Cruz last July (1921) were some 
Mexican families on their way back to their native land. In 
conversation with my secretary they confided to her their grave 
apprehensions about the future. "We thought," one lady la- 
mented, "that we had done with civil war and revolutions. 
But alas ! we now have to face those horrors once more and I 
am in fear and trembling for what awaits us." "But why 



PREPARING THE ATMOSPHERE 53 

should you be afraid," inquired my secretary; "what is hap- 
pening to frighten you?" "I do not know what is actually 
happening. 1 only know that in New York where we have 
been staying for the last few months all the Americans as- 
sured us that Mexico is on the verge of civil war, that a revolu- 
tion is about to break out and that we ought to put off our 
journey until peace has been established by American troops. 
And surely they must know." 

The lady was not far astray : they were the people who had 
foretold the previous revolutions and they were right on those 
occasions. They now expected a new one about June in Tam- 
pico among the troops of General Pelaez, and she believed 
them. As a matter of fact arrangements had been made for 
overturning the Obregon Administration and General Pelaez 
publicly accused the oil corporations of being implicated in 
the matter, but so far he has not substantiated the charge 
by producing evidence which he promised to publish. 

In a word, the plain truth would seem to be that an atmos- 
phere is being carefully created and poured round the unsus- 
pecting American people, — an atmosphere favourable to un- 
warranted action of a kind which it would never countenance 
could it pierce the veil and see things as they are. And of all 
the relevant facts the most decisive are the advent to power of 
President Obregon and the far-ranging changes which that 
event has brought in its train. 

In a series of articles which appeared in the Saturday 
Evening Post I endeavoured to show how completely the 
issue between the Mexican Republic and foreign States has 
been transformed by those two changes in the Presidency and 
in the policy of the country, and to convey to the public an 
idea of the character, abilities and experience of Mexico's 
new leader. They were biographical sketches calculated to 
rid Obregon of his spurious character and to reconstruct the 
broken image reflected in the ruffled waters of revolution, and 
to depict him as he is. I was preparing others in which I set 
forth his policy and sought to prove that it is a rounded system 
of thought to be embodied in a graduated course of action and 
legislation. 



54 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

But to my surprise those articles were sharply criticised in 
private and I learned that however indisputable the data might 
be, their publication was deemed to be injurious at once to the 
political and the material interests of those groups of Ameri- 
can workers who had been endeavouring to influence by sharp- 
ening the Mexican policy of the actual Administration of the 
United States. I was further apprised that what the American 
people needed to have brought home to them was the hopeless 
condition of things in Mexico as painted in Mr. Fall's report 
to the Senate, as though the sun and the moon had been 
standing still since the days of Madero, Victoriano Huerta 
and Carranza. To kindle emotion and arouse antagonistic 
sentiment, rather than to spread accurate knowledge, appeared 
to be most urgently needed in those high latitudes where the 
threads of what might become Mexico's destinies were being 
diligently spun. The factors of the problem might have under- 
gone a radical alteration. The truths of yesterday might have 
become the falsehoods of to-day. But all that was to be 
treated as esoteric knowledge and the public was not to be in- 
formed of the transmutation; it was to have the misdeeds 
which had passed into history kept steadily before its gaze 
tmtil fascinated by the spectacle it should work itself into a 
fury of passion and call upon the expectant "cleaners up" to 
exorcise the demons of bolshevism and anarchy. 

That was one of the most noteworthy characteristics of the 
phenomena which came within my ken in connection with the 
deliberate and purposeful moulding of public opinion in the 
United States by groups of influential individuals who call and 
mayhap believe themselves to be friends of the Mexican people. 

Ever since the accession of General Obregon to power all 
kinds of reports calculated to depict Mexican conditions as 
hopeless have been appearing and reappearing with the force- 
ful iteration of an advertisement and their hypnotising effect 
on the average reader is supremely mischievous. A number of 
daily papers kept publishing articles on Obregon, Calles and 
other ministers by the journalist Mr. Stephen Bonsai and 
others whose zeal outruns their knowledge. A pressman 
named Albert W. Fox who lives in Washington and sketches 



PREPARING THE ATMOSPHERE 55 

Mexico from there published articles of a like alarming charac- 
ter. Here are the headlines of one: "Obregon losing hold. 
Reports indicate overturn in Mexico within six months. Bad 
influences gaining. Premier and Calles and other Leaders 
now listed as Bolsheviks."^ In these ways Mexico is being 
discredited. A bad name is all that is needed. "I will not 
shed thy blood," cried the Quaker to the barking dog, "but I 
will give thee a bad name," whereupon he shouted : "Beware 
of the mad dog" and the passers-by did the rest. 

Six months at the very outside — the more probable term 
being three — were thus accorded by a Washington journalist 
to President Obregon. This determination of the date is sig- 
nificant in many respects. Within six calendar months from 
March, 192 1, political forces were certain, according to this 
remarkable forecast, to overthrow the First Chief and his Gov- 
ernment just as throughout the summer and autumn of 1920 
unnamed forces were to have hindered him from surviving 
long enough to take possession of his office, and bets were 
given and taken to that effect in Mexico City by foreign resi- 
dents. General Calles and other leaders were listed as bol- 
sheviks — and their own protests ignored. Surely the Ameri- 
can public desires and deserves a nearer approach to the truth 
than those pressmen seem capable of offering them. 

The revenue of the Republic is being squandered, the Ameri- 
can people was assured, and squandered ruthlessly. "No one 
appears able to find out how much money goes into the Mexi- 
can treasury and what becomes of it. . . . The nearest ap- 
proach to a definite statement on this score was obtained by 
an American (the Mexicans invariably choose indiscreet 
Americans to whom to make damaging confessions) within 
the past few weeks who was informed on one particular oc- 
casion that two-thirds of the money received would be ex- 
pended legitimately by the Government."" How can foreigners 
be expected to invest capital in such a country or to object to 
the advent of the professional "cleaners up" ! 

What naive people these Mexican rulers are who thus blurt 

^The Washington Post, 28th March, 1921. 
2 Ibidem. 



56 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

out damaging truths to the wide-awake foreigner! They se- 
lect an American as their confidant and tell him with engag- 
ing frankness: "Two-thirds of this money received will be ex- 
pended legitimately," and the scandalised American forthwith 
has the unedifying piece of information blazoned abroad for 
the guidance of the people of the United States. "The foreign 
diplomatists in Mexico City," we read again, "estimate that 
there will be a new Government within ninety days or six 
months at the outside. Obregon," it is added, "fully realises 
that he is powerless to bring about the restoration of his coun- 
try."^ The President presumably must have chosen another 
good-natured American to whom he confided his despair, so 
that the United States people should get timely wind of the 
matter! He fully realises and frankly confesses his power- 
lessness in private and announces the opposite in public ! He 
deceives his own people and confides the painful truth to 
hungry outsiders! What a President, or what a system of 
propaganda ! 

The same influential organ informs the American people 
of the terrible turn recently taken by the economic and finan- 
cial affairs of the Southern Republic. "Mexico almost bank- 
rupt, labouring under severe economic depression, has been 
approaching a political crisis for weeks. The call of Congress 
in special session, with the ensuing disturbances in the Cham- 
ber and radical outbreaks in various centres, has brought it to 
a head. . . . Mr. Stephen Bonsai writing in the Evening Post 
of March 29th said that the Republic was on the eve of a 
severe political upheaval."* 

All this may be excellent propaganda but it is superlatively 
unsatisfactory as historical narrative. Undoubtedly the Mexi- 
can Republic is passing through a period of severe economic 
depression, but it is largely the consequence of the financial 
boycott to which she is being subjected by the United States. 
But is there any country on the globe which can be said to be 
exempted from economic depression? Is it France, or Ger- 
many, or England, or even the United States? The entire civi- 

' AVrt' York Evening Post, May 19th, 1921. 
♦ Ibidem. 



PREPARING THE ATMOSPHERE 57 

lised world is suffering from the consequences of an iniquitous 
war which should never have been begun and which ought to 
have been stopped before it had reached its catastrophic finale. 
And of all the nations now undergoing those consequences 
there is probably none better able to endure it than the Mexi- 
can. On the one hand its people have been inured to want, 
and on the other hand, Mexico and the United States are still 
among the very few countries whose finances are on a gold 
basis. The national debt per capita of the population is very 
much lower than in most States of the world. The potential 
natural wealth of the country is considerably greater. And 
the future of the people is in the hands of a statesman who, un- 
like so many of his foreign compeers, is neither a moralising 
amateur nor a decorative figurehead but a safe guide and a 
man of sterling character. 

Propaganda — one of the most deadly of the scourges fos- 
tered if not created by the war which like militarism and im- 
perialism has survived into the present — deals as disingenu- 
ously with reputations as with economic and political condi- 
tions. Thus Mr. Stephen Bonsai, we read, describes ex-Presi- 
dent de la Huerta, "as a dangerous intriguer and declares that 
his followers openly call him President designate." General 
Calles, as we saw, is spoken of as a bolshevik, and so on to the 
end of the chapter. 

Surely the most effective way to bring about friendly rela- 
tions between the great English-speaking Republic and its 
Latin- American neighbour is not for writers in the press of 
the former country to pay it a flying visit, set up as friends 
of the nation, enjoy its hospitality and then give its ruler 
sixty days to remain in power and publicly announce a revo- 
lution against him as imminent. If the object pursued were 
to key the minds of the American people to intervention, this 
would no doubt be the proper procedure to adopt. And if we 
join this with the endeavours made to keep open-minded Amer- 
icans from visiting Mexico and from judging its condition for 
themselves, we have the two expedients which constitute the 
tactics of the militant movement now going forward in the 
United States. 



58 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

In European countries there used to be a class of men who 
gathered gold coins, filed and scraped them and without ob- 
viously defacing them obtained a considerable quantity of gold 
by the process. They were known to the tribunals as "coin- 
clippers." In the less refined political controversies of some 
countries to-day a certain class of propagandists practise an 
analogous method and when facts and arguments fail them, as 
they usually do, proceed to clip the honour of those whom they 
are unable to injure in any other way. This expedient, at all 
times repulsive, is especially odious when used as a weapon 
by the champions of people whom circumstance has made 
neighbours and w^ho are impelled by interest no less than by 
duty to live in peace and amity. 

And no Mexican public men have sufifered so much from 
reputation-clippers as the Mexican President and his fellow- 
w^orkers. They have been roundly charged with almost every 
offence punishable by the criminal code. I myself was com- 
pletely misled on the subject of General Obregon and others 
before I had the advantage of meeting them. 

I had heard much about the former from eminent Ameri- 
cans — experts all of them on Mexican afifairs — to whom the 
principal sources of information, public and private, were 
easily accessible. And the portrait which I drew from the data 
thus liberally supplied was the reverse of attractive. Later 
on when I came to know him as he is, I perceived that the data 
were fabrications and the portrait a sorry caricature. 

I should like, were it feasible, to ascribe the circumstantial 
and false information volunteered to me by my informants to 
what Goethe termed the dangerous ease with which a great 
man's contemporaries usually go astray about him. "That 
which is uncommon in the individual bewilders them," he 
adds, "life's headstrong current distorts their angle of vision 
and keeps them from knowing such men and appreciating 
them." But it is to be feared that in the case of the great 
Mexican President the true explanation lies elsewhere. 

My first visit to Obregon took place while I still believed 
that he was one of the least reputable types of the class ridi- 
culed in the United States as the Mexican General. Primed 



PREPARING THE ATMOSPHERE 59 

with this idea, I called on him one afternoon at his hotel in 
Mexico City. His ante-chamber was filled with typical rep- 
resentatives of the despised masses with whom he was hail- 
fellow-well-met, — of the ninety per cent set by nature in a 
stream of wealth which like Tantalus of old they are forbidden 
to enjoy. He inquired what he could do for me. I answered : 
"I merely wish to know how you intend to deal with the prob- 
lems of recognition, of Mexico's debts, of foreign claims for 
losses and kindred matters when, as now appears certain, you 
will have entered upon the duties of President." "My answer 
is simple," he playfully replied, "Mexico will pay her debts 
and satisfy the just claims of foreigners. As for recognition, 
I cannot admit that it is a Mexican problem. Foreign states 
will recognise the lawful government of the Republic In ac- 
cordance with the laws of nations. That is all. You would 
not suggest, would you, that any of them will make a new de- 
parture?" I arose, said that I would not trespass further on 
his time, thanked him for his reply, wished him good after- 
noon and left. 

Next day a friend of his informed me that the General 
would be pleased to see me again, to have a more satisfactory 
talk with him, adding that he had been under the impression 
that I was one of the numerous callers whose aim was to ply 
him with futile questions and then to comment adversely on 
his answers. He intended to start In two days for his home 
in Nogales and would gladly receive me any time before his 
departure. I said that I would not trouble the General fur- 
ther now but might possibly be In Nogales myself in a few 
weeks when I would take the liberty to call on him. The next 
day I received an invitation to accompany him on his journey 
to Nogales which after a few hours deliberation I accepted. 

On that journey and on our many subsequent travels, I had 
a rare opportunity to study General Obregon in the various 
lights shed by changing situations, by adventures pleasant and 
unpleasant, exhilarating and depressing. I saw him in his na- 
tive place surrounded by his family and his kindred and 
neither In real life nor in fiction could one find a more per- 
fect realisation of ideal family life than in the modest home 



60 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

at Nogales or the little house beside the Castle of Chapultepec. 
In that large family circle where representatives of three gen- 
erations live and work in harmony the best traditions of old 
Castile are cultivated together with all that is most helpful 
in the modern way of interpreting life. The children are 
taught to be themselves, original, unaffected, modest, truthful 
and considerate of others withal. The parents guide mainly 
by example almost without perceptible effort and the inter- 
course between the two is natural and easy. In a word, there 
is a soothing and yet stimulating atmosphere of peace and hap- 
piness in the domestic circle which is felt and appreciated even 
by the casual visitor. 

In the State of Sonora I met and conversed with General 
Obregon's earliest teachers and his schoolmates. I accom- 
panied him on his electoral tour and listened to over a hun- 
dred of his improvised addresses, always with a keen sense of 
aesthetic enjoyment and at times with admiration for his fair- 
ness and generosity as an antagonist. He is a magnanimous 
enemy, free from spite and meanness. To my knowledge he 
possessed documents which if published would have debarred 
certain of his adversaries from ever again appearing on the 
public stage. But he declined to make use of them during 
the elections or indeed later unless the behaviour of the authors 
should oblige him to make known their misdeeds. Since then 
the authors have been fomenting a rebellion and the docu- 
ments have set an indelible mark on both. 

Obregon is one of the very few men I have met — Veni- 
zelos is another — on whom power and rank have no further 
effect than that of sharpening their sense of responsibility. In 
all other respects he is as he was. Most men can bear adver- 
sity, few can support greatness. To weak heads great heights 
are dangerous. Never in her history has Mexico had the good 
fortune to possess a leader whose message appealed with such 
irresistible force alike to the heart and the intelligence of a 
whole people, revealing their needs and expressing their hopes 
and uplifting their souls. Neither has any public leader ever 
before appeared among the ^Mexicans whose ideas met so 
many of the pressing wants of the population and fitted in so 



PREPARING THE ATMOSPHERE 61 

completely with the unprecedented conditions of the epoch and 
the country. For the conditions have no parallel in history 
and if the theory according to which Providence raises up men, 
of destiny for each great crisis were aught more than a pious 
desire one could not discover any more striking corroboration 
of it than the personality and the message of General Obregon. 

It is well nigh impossible for the bulk of the American 
people to correct by such concrete tests the misstatements 
about Mexico scattered broadcast for a definite purpose by 
professional propagandists. And therein lies the danger to 
peace and the fair name of the people of the United States who 
together with their Southern neighbours are the victims of this 
deplorable campaign. 

Thousands of American excursionists — ^mostly business men 
interested in buying from and selling to Mexico raw materials 
and manufactured goods — visited the country in response to a 
hospitable invitation given to them by President Obregon. 
Many of them were able to converse with the people, exchange 
views with members of the Government and to keep an open 
eye for traces of the abuses spread over a decade of civil strife 
the records of which were gathered up in a bulky volume and 
presented by Mr. Fall to the world as a mirror of Mexico as 
it is to-day. And those people returned home satisfied in mind 
with the ample guarantees for life and property which the 
Obregon Administration has provided for foreigners who visit 
or reside in the land. 

One would think that this personal contact was desirable be- 
cause illuminating, educational and humanising. But it was 
found by the propagandists in the United States to have one 
overwhelming disadvantage, and on this account they set their 
faces against it : it tended to bring the two peoples together, to 
dissipate the misconceptions on both sides, to discredit the mis- 
chief-makers and thus to destroy the case for intervention. 
Every expedient that promised success was accordingly em- 
ployed to put a stop to these excursions. One of the most 
singular of these efforts took the form of a letter publicly ad- 
dressed to the American Chamber of Commerce which had 
arranged to visit Mexico City last June to take part in the Inr 



62 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

ternational Congress of Merchants there. The appeal to de- 
cline the invitation was issued by the American Association of 
Mexico, and the argument employed was that these excursions 
form "part of a program to render futile any protests against 
acts and legislations of the Mexican Government, which pro- 
gramme if successful would render permanent the handicaps 
imposed upon American citizens under the so-called Consti- 
tution ( !) of 1917. . . . No form of propaganda could be 
more effective than this." None indeed. For when Ameri- 
cans have seen Mexican conditions for themselves they be- 
come proof against falsehoods and half-truths which are often 
more poisonous than falsehoods. 

Now there is but one conceivable motive for objecting to 
this mode of investigation . . . and it need neither be quali- 
fied nor even named. 

The Americans most conversant with what is happening in 
Mexico are the inhabitants of the border states, Texas, Ari- 
zona, New Mexico, and they are profoundly struck with the 
vast and beneficent changes already realised in the Republic 
and with the admirable reforms outlined by President Obre- 
gon as part of his political programme. Having come to the 
conclusion that after years of floundering in the quagmire of 
internecine strife the Republic is at last on the high road to 
progress and prosperity they are anxious to see removed those 
formidable barriers to advancement which have been raised 
by professional politicians among their own countrymen and 
by a group of companies working hand in hand with these. 
Friendly co-operation and peaceful emulation are their 
ideals. 

And the views of those near neighbours are the more worthy 
of note that they represent the convictions of the people who 
a couple of years back clamoured for armed intervention and 
persisted in the demand until they beheld and grasped the 
significance of the change inaugurated by General Obregon. 
Their Chambers of Commerce contain a considerable number 
of individuals who are thoroughly versed in Mexican affairs, 
are acquainted with the country, the people and the language, 
are impatient of revolutionary methods, eager to do business 



PREPARING THE ATMOSPHERE 63 

and shrewd enough to know when the lives and properties of 
their countrymen in Mexico are adequately protected. 

And those are some of the people who now call upon their 
Government in Washington to end the costly and irritating 
boycott entailed by the refusal of recognition to Obreg6n*s 
Government and to enable the Mexican people to help them- 
selves and profit by the guidance of a leader the like of whom 
they have never had the good fortune to follow even when the 
President's name was Benito Juarez. 

What impresses all those competent American observers 
whose judgment is most favourable to the present adminis- 
tration in Mexico are the many unmistakable tokens of radi- 
cal betterment which have of late originated inside the Re- 
public. They are especially struck with the decisive innova- 
tion that its policy— in so far as it was anti-American — has 
been reversed and is now directed by an exceptionally fine type 
of statesman who displays capacity for basic reform and glow- 
ing sympathies with the higher aspirations of humanity. 
They appreciate the extent to which his endeavours have 
already contributed to raise the level of thought and feeling 
in the community. They further dwell with satisfaction upon 
the decisive circumstance that General Obregon, buoyed up by 
the respect of political adversaries and cautious friends, re- 
gards it as his life task to evolve order out of that welter of 
chaos and inaugurate a series of beneficent internal reforms, 
after having first complied with all the just demands of foreign 
governments. They rejoice to see that now at last the South- 
ern Republic has a President whose settled purpose is tlie sub- 
stitution of morality for politics and who is effectually stem- 
ming the tide of insubordination with a solid breakwater of 
order and justice. They know that he has quenched the flames 
of civil war, scattered its embers to the four winds of heaven 
and bestowed surcease of bloodshed and terror upon the sorely 
tried population. And they regard these achievements as a 
pledge of still greater feats to come. 

Why then, they ask, should we not assume that the new 
spirit of which he is the Incarnation will usher in a new era of 
domestic peace and international amity? 



64, MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

Here is the gist of the answer given by the other group of 
corporations and poHticians whose conceptions are simple, 
whose methods are primitive and who rely wholly upon exter- 
nal measures of a drastic character, leaving nothing to Nature's 
healing processes : "Because we cannot build upon the present 
until we have cleared away the consequences of the past; be- 
cause Mexico having forgotten her obligations, it behooves the 
United States to enforce its rights; because the shadows of the 
bloody past warn us of the perils of the future; because there 
is no hope for the nation from within ; because socially and 
politically Mexico is an Augean stable and it is incumbent 
upon her neighbour to perform the friendly service of clean- 
ing it up as it has done so thoroughly in Cuba. The United 
States," they add, "has been imitating Nature too closely and 
has given a needlessly long credit to its frail neighbour. It 
has unwisely refrained from dishonouring her overdraft and 
now at last feels constrained to square accounts in the interests 
of all concerned, even though the innocent should fare no 
better than the guilty. One should be just before being gen- 
erous. The Mexicans whom Obregon is leading differ hardly 
at all from those who were misgoverned by his immediate 
predecessor. They are tainted by the same vices. His order- 
ing of things political has not fulfilled the hopes which his 
friends entertained. He is but a chip of the old block. Hence 
the salutary chastisement which the Republic has long since 
deserved at the hands of the United States should be admin- 
istered forthwith irrespective of who is President and what 
his policy happens to be and of the consequences which would 
accrue to their own country from this energetic action." In 
a word, in order to escape the smoke they are ready to jump 
into the fire and take their country with them. 

Mexicans are pained to hear such maxims of the primacy 
of might propounded seriously. For they know that if acted 
upon, their country's lines would indeed fall in unpleasant 
places. They are grieved to think that their too quiescent 
people having been victimised for years by bands of domestic 
miscreants and exploited by grasping foreigners may now be 
further penalised by fanatical crusaders of oily "righteous- 



PREPARING THE ATMOSPHERE 65 

ness" for having patiently endured these calamities. And the 
edge of Fate's irony would be sharpened by the circumstance 
that at the time when insatiable blood thirst and anarchist 
frenzy ran riot in Mexico, when brigandage usurped the place 
of military discipline, graft superseded justice and the further- 
ance of sordid aims was substituted for statesmanship, Car- 
ranza and his confederates, who were in a large measure an- 
swerable for that travesty of government, were treated by the 
United States of America as petted children, their misdeeds 
winked at and their power to go on perpetrating them strength- 
ened, whereas the strong man now in the presidential chair, 
who is able and eager to heal the nation's wounds and impress 
the stamp of his creative genius on the history of his country, 
is to be denied not only recognition and credit but even the 
time requisite for the fulfilment of his solemn promises. 

Mexican affairs then have entered upon a stage respecting 
which foreign political thought — in so far as it is interested in 
them at all — ranges itself either in the category of manly trust- 
fulness or in that of swift aggressive action. Those who 
favour the latter course are scanning the Mexican horizon 
for a suitable champion of their ideas and they wistfully yearn 
for the rule of Diaz which they contemplate athwart the 
medium of foreign interests, forgetting that that highly gifted 
leader brandished the bludgeon of the upstart Dictator whereas 
Obregon wields the wand of Moses, — although unlike the 
Hebrew leader he may for the moment lack the support of an 
Aaron and a Hur against the enemies of his people. 

The unbiased observer will symapthise with General Obre- 
gon who has taken over a heavily encumbered legacy and is 
grappling with vast liabilities which would have dismayed the 
world's most famous statesmen. For it is a struggle on wholly 
unequal terms and against overwhelming odds. It might aptly 
be likened to that of a Mexican David who is without his sling 
facing the American giant Goliath armed from head to foot. 
It is painfully true that time has long stood still for Obregon's 
countrymen, — the time that brings experience, increased 
knowledge and provides the motive power of progress. In 
the onward march of peoples the Southern Republic has per- 



66 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

sistently lagged behind among primitive cultures and exploded 
ideas and is now about to undergo an ordeal from which it 
cannot emerge unscathed except by dint of those very advan- 
tages which it has neglected to acquire. 

While in this helpless condition it is being virtually sum- 
moned by a small group of foreign citizens of the nation which 
holds the foremost place in the ranks of progressive races to 
enter upon a contest for the possession of its own material 
resources and to prepare the most favourable strategical condi- 
tions for its mighty rival. The published terms of the chal- 
lenge are naturally couched in less crude language but this is 
the light in which the summons is envisaged by responsible 
Mexican politicians and by many impartial outsiders. The 
ideal as presented to the American people, which has no han- 
kering after territorial aggrandisement, is that of a fair and 
free competition of all the forces of science, organisation, capi- 
tal and technical skill backed by political experience and mili- 
tary power. And this has an attractive ring which will it is 
hoped disarm criticism. But as Mexico is deficient in them all, 
is even dependent upon her competitor for her weapons and 
sees her case grossly misrepresented to the American public, 
the outcome of the contest may well seem a foregone con- 
clusion. 

For the hapless state of the Mexican people the fatuous pol- 
icy of the Carranza administration is only partially to blame. 
Foreign exploitation of their natural resources was the root- 
cause. But it cannot be gainsaid that that President acted on 
the maxim that his country must be in standing antagonism 
to the United States, or that he set up the doctrine that all 
Latin-American republics should do likewise. The inevitable 
result of his efforts in this direction was to throw Mexico 
into the arms of her powerful neighbour without whose co-op- 
eration it must nowcontinue to languish in darkness and misery. 
To-day all its domestic problems present some delicate inter- 
national aspect which perplexes the native reformer. At every 
hand's turn he must apprehend a protest from the great north- 
em Republic. Every revolution against crying abuses is struck 
barren by outside interposition. The levy of a new tax or the 



PREPARING THE ATMOSPHERE 67 

increase of one already in vigour may call forth a sharp diplo- 
matic representation on the ground that it impairs the interests 
or infringes the rights of the citizens of the United States. 
The expropriation of private land and the breaking up of large 
haciendas which is an imperative necessity is found to inter- 
fere v^ith the conditions deemed indispensable to the foreign 
pioneers and forthwith oral or written expostulations are pre- 
sented. The Constitution, in which a germ of confiscation is 
said to he embedded, must be not merely amended but scrapped. 
A dispute between employers and workmen is described as a 
sinister quarrel between foreigners and natives into which the 
poison of racial bitterness Is speedily infused — a poison of 
which the weaker party invariably receives the larger dose. 
What in other countries would be an ordinary strike is made to 
assume on the opposite bank of the Rio Grande the formidable 
character of a bolshevist manifestation which cannot long 
be brooked by the law-abiding neighbour. Foreign agitators 
help create the very troubles which are relied upon to discredit 
the Republic. Revolutions against the Obregon administra- 
tion are publicly said to be encouraged by Mexico's foreign 
"friends." In short, one of the consequences of Carranza's 
insensate doctrine of aloofness on the one hand and of foreign 
machinations on the other hand has been to interweave almost 
every fibre of the national organism with foreign rights and 
interests so closely, so Inextricably, as almost to defy the most 
dexterous diplomatist to sunder them. 

More ominous for the moment than aught else, however, is 
the circumstance that the road to domestic reforms is effec- 
tually and deliberately blocked by international issues. And 
until and unless they are satisfactorily disposed of, no serious 
and lasting betterment can be achieved in the politico-social 
sphere at home. Every jeer at Obregon's slowness is in truth 
a scoff at foreign obstructionism which is mainly answerable 
for it. The most genial reformer is paralysed by the Ameri- 
can boycott. For instance, Mexico needs rail, carriage and 
water ways as sorely as the parched wheat needs rain, but 
without large credits there can be no important extension of 
the network of iron ways, no draining of rivers, no building 



68 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

of causeways. And the great financial houses of the United 
States have resolved to refuse financial succour until their Gov- 
ernment notifies them that they may safely accord it. If a 
Cavour or a Bismarck were President of Mexico to-day he 
would be as powerless for good as a new-born babe, so long 
as the international boycott has not been raised by the United 
States. The foreign politicians operate with economic means 
of pressure and the foreign industrials with political. And in 
this way they have contrived to place the ill-starred Southern 
Republic between the hammer and the anvil. 

In a word, the events of the past ten years have released 
potent forces on this side of the Rio Grande the perpetuation 
of which may thrust back the Mexican people into the ooze of 
chaos from which they have just emerged. That is the mani- 
fest and only possible outcome of further persistence in the po- 
litical, financial, economic and journalistic campaign which is 
now being conducted against the Southern Republic. But the 
eflFects of the catastrophe, should it come, will not, cannot be. 
circumscribed at will either within geographical frontiers or 
class interests. When Samson dislocated the pillars of the 
temple and caused the death of numerous Philistines he paid 
a high price for his success. But at least he had reason to con- 
sider it a patriotic feat Is this equally true of the foreign 
saviours of Mexico? 



CHAPTER VII 

The White Man's Precious Burden 

Since the historic days of the First Chief a noteworthy 
change has, as we saw, come over the international situation. 
To-day Mexico is on her trial. She is about to undergo an 
examination which will qualify or disentitle her to take over 
the role which she has been exerting herself to play since she 
cut her moorings from Spain a hundred years ago and even to 
retain the place which she still occupies in the society of na- 
tions. And the test is uncommonly searching. Happily the 
Republic is personified by a man whose State-building capac- 
ity is unquestioned, who would fain steer a plain course 
through the bewildering maze of international intrigue, and 
who is prepared to render unto C^sar the things that are 
Caesar's while keeping for Mexico the things that are Mexi- 
co's, unless force majeure prevents him. 

This lucky coincidence which the superstitious might ascribe 
to Providence gives the country a much better chance to main- 
tain its independence than it would have had under any other 
leadership. None the less, this is Mexico's last opportunity 
and the work of reconstruction, by which it alone can be fruc- 
tified, is being undertaken with painful consciousness of the 
prize at stake and of the unsurpassed difficulty of the circum- 
stances, A decade of destructive civil war during which the 
Mexican Republic stood at anchor in the stream of time while 
other nations moved constantly forward, has dislocated various 
State institutions and demoralised many of the former admin- 
istrators. Hence the difficulty of finding competent helpers. 
And yet President Obregon, in spite of his comprehensive 
knowledge of mankind, is an optimist, possibly because the 
field of international politics has not yet been covered by his 
varied experience. He honestly believes that in the long run 

one of the achievements of foreign diplomacy will be to cause 

69 



70 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

the deep-rooted ethical forces of modern society to prevail on 
the side of humanity over the impulse towards greed and 
rancour. In fact he has made this assumption the pivot of his 
policy which he framed in a spirit of justice that borders on 
generosity and is pursuing with courage and constancy. It is 
no doubt meet that his heart should thus charitably assume 
the innate goodness of the great money-making corporations 
of to-dav but one feels that his eye should be none the less 
sharp-sighted in seeking for proofs of its concrete existence. 
Underlying almost every great political movement, however 
noble, whether confined to diplomacy or extended to the battle- 
field, the scrutinising observer will perceive a more or less 
sordid economic interest which is almost always kept in the 
background and is often unsuspected. If this was a common 
phenomenon in the past it is certain to be equally common in 
the present and the future, seeing that the struggle for exist- 
ence — racial, national and individual — is become sterner and 
more ruthless than heretofore, so that ethics and even re- 
ligion have been laid under tribute in order to provide a decent 
vesture for sordid politics. 

In this age of spurious virtues and law-made vices, the 
prevalent incongruous mixture of cupidity and altruism is at 
times bewildering. There is a marked tendency to render na- 
tions as well as individuals righteous by statute law and it 
now threatens to creep into international relations. In fact it 
is beginning already to become operative as a force. On the 
one hand the State is endeavouring to discharge certain func- 
tions of the Church within its own borders, and on the other 
the leading races are being assured by their ambitious public 
men that they are providentially destined to act as guardians 
to their semi-civilised neighbours and to deal with these, their 
"natural wards." as they are dealing with their own citizens.^ 

^ There is at present a movement headed by the Presbyterian Church in 
the United States which aims at extending prohibition to the Philippines 
and suppressing the vicious habit of smoking by legislation. In the 
United States at a i)lacc called Zion a Xew York lady visitor was recently 
arrested on stepping down from the train because she was wearing the 
ordinary short sleeved dress of New York and Washington. Morality by 
statute is mnking perceptible headway. See The New York Times, June 
2ist, \g2\. 



THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 71 

It is a new and more mischievous form of the doctrine of 
divine right and the grace of God. The main innovation is 
that it is applied to privileged races instead of to privileged 
individuals. Hence morality of a far-shining kind has become 
a lucrative policy and is being cultivated accordingly. Anglo- 
Saxon statecraft has instinctively borrowed and is quietly col- 
ouring for the use of its wards certain of the maxims which 
hitherto belonged exclusively to the religious domain and whole 
peoples are being rescued from "vice" by the "secular arm" 
almost as in medieval times. Whether one approves or 
deprecates this new line of action In world polity, no statesmen 
among the unprivileged nations can afford to ignore it. For 
it is being tentatively experimented with on the Old Continent 
and is about to be proclaimed a political dogma or a regional 
doctrine on the New. The maxims ascribed to those innovat- 
ing Governments being in the nature of a justification for a 
resolve already taken on other grounds represent at bottom 
concrete aims rather than general principles. None the less, a 
special pleader might summarise the available arguments some- 
what as follows. 

Progress is a law of life which operates with constancy and 
rigour, necessitating competition and resulting in the selection 
of the fittest. It actuates not merely the individuals of a race 
or a State but likewise the larger organised entities which con- 
stitute the international family of civilised peoples. Race thus 
competes with race, nation with nation and State with State. 
And whenever this competition ceases the result is stagnation 
which means retrogression. Now during the past ten years of 
fitful volcanic outbursts and indeed for a much longer period, 
Mexico had given up this pacific struggle and seemingly dis- 
qualified herself ever to resume it. Plans were accordingly 
woven to save her from herself and it is a grievous disappoint- 
ment to the weavers to learn that they will not be needed. It 
is this all important fact that is at the bottom of the present 
and future relations between the Republic of the South and 
the United States. The politicians, who have been joined by 
the oil interests, intent upon applying their specific, maintain 
that the Mexican people is devoid of the elements essential to 



72 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

reconstruction and indeed to a fully independent nation and 
further contend that even if it possessed them, the Constitu- 
tion of 191 7 would effectually hinder their exercise. There- 
fore the constructive outlanders should be allowed to have 
their innings. 

Isolation, it is further urged, — political isolation grounded 
on potential self-sufficiency — was the policy struck out by Car- 
ranza and it is falsely alleged that it will be followed volun- 
tarily or involuntarily by Obregon. Now such a train of 
thought as a motive for political action is stigmatised by the 
progressive races of to-day as pernicious and not to be tol- 
erated. Contact and competition with other peoples are rightly 
held to be indispensable and the ultimate disappearance of the 
weaker unities in vying with the stronger and more quick- 
pulsed is one of the dominant and salutary features in cul- 
tural and economic advancement. And it is desired that it 
should have free play. The quality which tells most advan- 
tageously and decisively in favour of each competing people 
is the subjection of the interests of the individual to those of 
the social organism. And in this the Mexicans are admittedly 
lacking. They have never yet displayed enough of that co- 
hesiveness which is the cement of every social system. Hence 
they are bound to fall into a state of dependence upon their 
successful rival. And just as the interests and strivings of in- 
dividual competitors in the process of natural selection are far 
from being identical with each other, nay are often mutually 
antagonistic, so the interests and aims of the advancing sec- 
tion of human kind as a whole are generally incompatible with 
those of the backward organisms. In the long run therefore 
the latter are doomed to go down before the former. Now 
one of the mainsprings of that social cohesiveness on which 
the victory depends is. we are told, the altniistic spirit infused 
ages ago by supernatural religion, some form of which 
quickens every type of civilisation. The more fully developed 
and the more deeply ingrained is this super-rational influence, 
the more readily will individual and group inspirations be sub- 
ordinated and sacrificed to the requirements of the higher 
unit. Communities which like Mexico are the most deficient 



THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 73 

in this upbuilding power are the most likely to champ the bit 
and ignore the sanction for altruistic sacrifice. Hence the up- 
shot of the struggle between the English-speaking and the 
Spanish-speaking populations of the new world is a foregone 
conclusion. 

Mexico, it is added, is the most conspicuous as well as the 
richest of those defective countries. Individual ambitions run 
wild there. They are unchecked by human or divine law. 
Even Church influence Is only skin-deep. The State is devoid 
of organs indispensable to normal growth. The best of them 
are rudimentary. Chaotic phenomena usurp the place of order 
and render progress impossible. The Mexican people, however 
great their potential innate aptitudes, have never yet made 
any valuable contributions to the common stock of civilisation. 
They have conceived no great idea, have associated their name 
with no helpful discovery, have In fact enriched the world 
with nothing but the gold, silver, oil and other forms of nat- 
ural wealth which were there before their advent and some of 
which might still be unutilised had not English-speaking pio- 
neers discovered and exploited them. But ever since the fall 
of Diaz the Mexicans have been playing the part of the dog In 
the manger to these enterprising foreigners. And this mis- 
chievous obstruction will no longer be tolerated. The time 
has come to break It. 

Furthermore the world war and Its consequences have, It Is 
asserted, confronted the United States as well as other pro- 
gressive countries with a dilemma, from the alternatives of 
which no mere theory of sovereign rights however plausible 
can deliver them. It Is this : Either the progress of the world 
must be stayed out of deference to a group of purblind poli- 
ticians who refuse to allow the resources provided by Nature 
for the good of mankind to be made accessible to those who 
are willing and able to use them to the best advantage of all, 
or else friendly enterprising foreigners endowed with these 
wealth-creating qualities must take them over by force and 
exploit them unhampered. The human race having increased 
and multiplied to an unprecedented extent, has need of all the 
available mineral and agricultural wealth to meet demands 



74 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

which cannot be evaded without a universal catastrophe. If 
these resources should be kept sealed indefinitely, whether by- 
deliberate intent or inability to create and maintain conditions 
favourable to their development, it is inconceivable that the na- 
tions which alone wield the power to utilise them should sit 
still and wait for something to turn up. To do so would be 
to be forgetful alike of their high ethical mission and their ex- 
tensive economic interests. 

In the meanwhile, the argument proceeds, an example worth 
taking to heart has been given by Great Britain, whose policy 
whatever may be urged against it by strenuous competitors is 
admittedly far-seeing. At the present conjuncture when min- 
eral oil fuel is taking the place of coal on land and sea and 
when according to trustw^orthy account all available petroleum 
in the United States w-ill be exhausted within a relatively 
brief period at the current rate of consumption which ex- 
ceeds production by more than fifty million barrels a year," 
the Government of Great Britain is very properly — and, it is 
added, successfully — endeavouring to obtain control of the 
most abundant supplies on the globe. And on the outcome 
of this fraternal competition may depend the roles which each 
of these kindred peoples will play in the further material de- 
velopment of the race. The force of this appeal to Britain's 
example was somewhat impaired by a number of assertions 
which turned out on inquiry to be false. Secretary Fall al- 
leged, for example, that King George's Government controlled 
one of the principal oil companies operating in Mexico and he 
received in dignified immobility and silence the courteous and 
emphatic contradiction which was issued by Great Britain. 

The history of progress throughout the globe, it is further 
urged, has been the story of the forcible seizure of the ma- 
terial means of advancement by those who could employ them 
to the best advantage against the will of the races which would 
have let them lie dormant. Although the methods employed 
in this struggle have been rough and blameworthv the loftv 
principle underlying them has never been repudiated. It is an 

2 Statement issued by R. L. Welsh. General Counsel for the American 
Petroleum Institute. Cf. Los Angeles Evening Express, 23rd April, 1920. 



THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 75 

instinct rather than a principle and it is at the bottom of the 
revised version of the Monroe Doctrine. It inspired Enghsh- 
speaking Americans in their attitude towards the Colonial 
strivings of European Powers ; it engendered the long-visioned 
policy of Great Britain, and now furnishes Japan with a tell- 
ing argument in favour of her mission in the Far East. And, 
spirited politicians hold, no flimsy altruistic theories should 
blind the United States to the advantage of applying that prin- 
ciple to its own pressing wants. The backward peoples who 
happen to reside in a country which contains the necessaries or 
the luxuries of the chosen races who form the vanguard of 
civilisation must no longer be permitted to render them inac- 
cessible. Progress requires the distribution of labour and op- 
portunity among all classes, individuals, nations and races ac- 
cording to their qualifications and the imposition of the rough 
work upon those inferior races and individuals who are fitted 
for no other. In the international domain the first step in this 
direction is the recognition of the hallowed custom of com- 
pelling backward peoples to allow the qualified pioneers access 
to their natural wealth and to adopt or accept such a code of 
laws as may appear to the latter conducive to their humani- 
tarian ends. 

Those are the premises from which the trend of the present 
political current may fairly be deduced. Gauging the aptitudes 
and aspirations of the Mexican population by these lofty stand- 
ards, North American politicians affirm that they have been 
weighed carefully and found wanting. The two-fold root of 
Mexico's troubles, internal and external, ever since her inde- 
pendence, has been a complete lack of poHtico-social cohesive-; 
ness together with that deep distrust of strangers which char- 
acterises the various elements of her population. The former 
defect has proved an active bar to the establishment of a 
settled and rational type of government and unless it be speed- 
ily displaced will bring about the extinction of Mexico's inde- 
pendence; while the latter is answerable for the long sequence 
of misunderstandings, serious troubles and sinister quarrels 
which have marked, the Republic's intercourse with foreign 
States. The country has always needed human leaven from 



76 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

abroad. It is the very breath of its economic existence. And 
yet throughout its history the foreigner has seldom been 
treated fairly and never consistently. 

That whole train of reasoning when scrutinised in the dry 
light of experience will be found to be little more than a strong 
scaffolding behind which a structure is being raised without 
any of the ideal features of which it is so suggestive. There 
will always be differences in degree and in form among the 
viable types of civilisation, however marked the tendency may 
become to substitute uniformity for variety. And whatever 
may be thought of the innate qualities of the Mexican peoples 
which, like the Russian, are still in flux, it will not be gainsaid 
by those who know them best that some of the innate elements 
of their mind and character, their hereditary faculties and apti- 
tudes bid fair under adequate educational training and higher 
social bonds to harmonise with what is best in the economic, 
political and spiritual conditions of the new era. They nearly 
all display a highly developed sense of the spiritual which 
often fringes upon mysticism, are marked by that attractive 
note of meditation and introspection which in the more cul- 
tural among them generates enthusiasm and inspires heroic 
self-sacrifice. It is only fair to add, however, that these re- 
marks should not be qualified with the limitation that gen- 
eralisations on matters ]\Iexican are well nigh always con- 
ducive to error. Another of their noteworthy traits is their 
power of assimilation. Gradually the foreign races are be- 
coming merged with the Indians and the blend is said to be 
excellent. 

It should further be borne in mind that those who put for- 
ward the plea of the primacy of the needs of mankind over 
the rights of the lesser peoples, especially when the latter fol- 
low a dog-in-the-manger policy, are argiu'nc;' on false assump- 
tions. They have not been forbidden to develop the resources 
of the country. On the contrary, they have been and are be- 
ing encouraged to go on with the work. All that the present 
Mexican Government is striving for is that the stream of 
riches which from the outset has been continuously flowing 
away from the country should be allowed to reach and bene- 



THE WHITE MAN'S BUKDEN 77 

fit those who own it. As the President forcibly put the mat- 
ter in his telegram to the New York World : "Mexico has well 
been called the treasure house of the world. In our moun- 
tains, plains and valleys there is incalculable wealth. Given 
scientific methods in agriculture and in irrigation, and our 
arable acreage will be able to sustain a population of 100,000,- 
000. We have iron, coal and water power sufficient to turn 
the wheels of the world. Our oil fields give promise of pro- 
ducing a billion barrels annually and our great stretches of 
pine and hardwoods are virtually untouched. 

"The same condition obtains with respect to metals. As 
for gold and silver there is no exact record of the millions 
sent annually to Spain during the three hundred years of vice- 
regal rule. In the last twenty years, however, even with revo- 
lutionary disturbances, our mines have produced more than a 
biUion dollars in net value. 

"Consider these facts and then consider the horror of pov- 
erty in which ninety per cent of the Mexican people have lived, 
a people endowed by nature with every blessing necessary to 
comfort and happiness, yet compelled to suffer and die from 
sheer lack of the necessities of life. Common humanity dic- 
tated a change, and it is this change that Mexico has made. 
We stand to-day on the principle that the natural resources of 
a nation belong to the nation. Never again will the people of 
Mexico tolerate a Government that does not support this 
principle. By no means does this imply a hermit nation policy. 
Mexico is not so foolish as to think that she can live alone or 
work alone, nor is any such wish in her heart; but what Mex- 
ico will ask in the future is a fair partnership in development. 
We are through forever with the policy of gift, graft and 
surrender."^ 

It is not denied that serious encroachments upon life and 
property were among the phenomena that characterised the 
various revolutions or that crime and vice were rampant dur- 
ing that long drawn out period of wild orgies. But such com- 
pensation as is possible for reparable losses is. being provided 

3 Cf. New York World of June 27th, 1921. Telegram sent by President 
of Mexico. 



78 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

for, abuses are being remedied, and guarantees given for the 
future. The internal Mexican situation has therefore changed 
radically. The militant attitude of the foreign groups has re- 
mained without modification. It is also an unquestioned fact 
that the oil companies in especial which are now clamouring 
for drastic pressure to be put upon Mexico contrived to carry 
on their work during the darkest days of the Revolution. The 
talk about the needs of humanity, the white man's burden 
and the sacred duty of the more advanced nation to act as the 
keeper and mentor of the more backward is one of the least 
respectable survivals of the world war when clap-trap of the 
most specious kind usurped the functions of sound common 
sense and fiction was substituted for fact. Cuba which went 
through the mill which is now being prepared for Mexico 
became materially prosperous under the tutelage of the United 
States but for the time being lost her national soul. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Foreign Pioneer 

Mexico is a microcosm — an epitome of the planet. It con- 
tains mountains and valleys, lakes and plains, a vast coast line 
and extensive deserts, rich mines, oil wells, coal measures, 
agricultural and grazing soil, tropical lands, temperate zones, 
snowbound hills, volcanoes and hot medicinal springs. In a 
word, in order to become the most thriving country on the 
Western Continent it needs only money to provide water and 
communications. Meanwhile the lack of these entails economic 
misery and political disintegration. There is money in abun- 
dance but in virtue of an oversight of the legislator it is ear- 
marked for the wealthy foreigner. In vast stretches of terri- 
tory a sufficiency of moisture, whether from rainfall or arti- 
ficial irrigation, would make all the difference to the inhabi- 
tants between downright poverty and material well-being. 
And as the rainfall is too meagre or too violent and irriga- 
tion has not yet taken its place, poverty and all that that im- 
plies have for generations been the lot of the people. This is 
especially true of some of the northern States in which thou- 
sands of square miles of potentially fertile soil produce noth- 
ing for lack of water. The State of Chihuahua, for example, 
which is far greater in area than Holland and Belgium has, 
we are assured by statisticians, only some sixty-five thousand 
hectares of land under cultivation, and most of this would 
have been as it was a few years ago — a barren steppe — were 
it not for the skill and labour and capital of the pushing out- 
lander. In the great State of Sonora where most of the soil 
differs in no essential respects from that of Southern Califor- 
nia, hardly five per cent of it is under cultivation. And yet 
it shows the same characteristics and the same potentialities 
as that for the growing of fruit and the production of cereal 
and leguminous food stuffs. It is only the stamina of the 

79 



80 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

men who inhabit the respective countries — one set well fed, 
well housed and well paid ; and the other hungry, ignorant and 
diseased — that makes the difference. And it can be unmade 
only by remedial measures against which the outlander has 
set his face. Like the mines, the coal measures and the oil 
wells, such lands are Nature's promises which the hand of man 
alone can redeem. 

Irrigation, although by far the most urgent need of the 
population in those arid territories of the North, is by no 
means their only requisite for self-support. Ways of com- 
munication are another. Lack of waterways and roads has 
from time immemorial formed the crux of the economic, politi- 
cal and cultural plight of Mexico. If the sense of national 
unity is weaker than it should be in that Republic to-day, one 
of the causes lies largely in the circumstance that owing to the 
impossibility of communications, the various ethnic elements 
held only rare and fitful intercourse with each other. A 
similar condition of things cut up the kindred branches of the 
ancient Hellenic race into isolated regions. In spite of the 
fact that Mexico in 1910 possessed a larger number of rail- 
ways and a greater mileage than any other Latin-American 
State, her people have sometimes to quit the Republic alto- 
gether and travel thousands of miles through foreign lands in 
order to reach some remote town or district in their native 
country. 

For ages this inaccessibility of one part of Mexico to the 
inhabitants of another part kept the various sections of the 
population effectually isolated, hindering the fusion of races, 
the elimination of the less cultivated languages, the extinction 
of dialects and the growth of a strong national spirit. It 
compelled a considerable percentage of the people to support 
life on serpents, bugs, worms, lizards, locusts, slimy insects and 
kindred loathsome things while others were well provided with 
corn, beans, bananas and fish. Relative plenty in one place 
was attended by waste, while scarcity in another caused 
famine, disease and death. And to-day it is computed that 
agricultural produce grown thirty miles from the railroad is 
not marketable. Rail and carria^re roads constitute, therefore, 



THE FOREIGN PIONEER 81 

the complement of irrigation, the one being only partly 
effective without the other. And both necessitate more capital 
and skill than the Mexican people with hardly any millionaires 
among them could provide. For the country is such that 
roads there unless constructed with the solidity of European 
and North American engineering are likely to be washed out 
by frequent destructive floods while bridges must be uncom- 
monly well made to keep them from being bodily swept away 
in like catastrophic fashion. 

When the foreign yoke was first shaken off by a band of 
half-breeds, Mexicans of Spanish stock and friendly Indians, 
there were no foreigners but Spaniards in the country. And 
these — their number is variously computed at from five to 
seven thousand — had displayed as little initiative as the Indians 
in developing the mineral and agricultural riches of the country. 
For centuries they had had unmatched opportunities which 
they employed only to plunder the natural resources to the full 
extent of the technical appHances of the day. For the behoof 
of the common people they did little but build churches. For 
three hundred years after the Spanish Conquest no subjects 
of any European State except the Spaniards — and even of 
these very few — were admitted into the land. Two years 
after the attainment of independence a law was passed by 
which the State protection of non-Mexicans was restricted 
to those who professed Catholicism, which was still the only 
recognized religion of the Empire. 

In the very same year^ that this inhospitable law was enacted 
another bill of a different kind was passed. The imperial 
Government recognising the inability of the natives to acquit 
themselves of the various duties of progressive peoples with- 
out help from outside, decided to invite immigration from 
abroad. The objects were to develop the dormant resources 
of the country, awaken confidence, obtain loans and equip 
the Republic for a worthy place among the nations of the 
earth. By this decree lands were offered to immigrants, who 
were dispensed from paying taxes for a period of six years 
and from paying duties upon agricultural implements and other 

^ 1823. 



82 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

foreign merchandise up to two thousand dollars. One can 
imagine the feelings of the English-speaking Protestant, 
Baptist, Methodist and other non-Catholic new-comers on 
learning that the Government which thus bestowed on them 
large tracts of land situated hard by unruly Indian tribes 
and held out to them various other inducements to settle there, 
must conscientiously decline to protect their lives or property. 
It is fair to add that neither that Government nor those which 
succeeded it for a quarter of a century or more sincerely 
desired to see an influx of non-Catholic foreigners into the 
country. 

Thus nearly every new Administration realising the need 
of an energising spirit, incarnate in foreign settlers, inaugu- 
rated its career by making a bid for enterprising capitalists, 
thrifty farmers, skilled technicians and generally immigrants 
possessed of the material wealth, moral fibre and business 
enterprise in which the population of Mexico was deficient. 
But owing to the distrust which the native almost everywhere 
in the world displays towards foreigners, every inducement 
offered was bracketed with a deterrent. Thus under the 
Empire, sturdy farmers like the English, the Scotch, the 
Dutch were warned away if their theological beliefs happened 
to differ from those of the Vatican, and when the Empire 
made room for a Republic, the legislature invested the Execu- 
tive with power to adopt "precautionary measures for the 
security of the Confederation" against foreign immigrants. 

In sooth the Mexican administration has never until quite 
recently been quite at ease when dealing with settlers from 
abroad. If these were pushing, eager for innovation and im- 
patient of time-killing formalism, they were set down as 
politically dangerous. If they were weak and lazy, as were 
some of the settlers of Latin race, they became a burden to the 
Treasury. If their faith was heretical, they were an abomina- 
tion to such governments as that of Iturbide. If it was 
orthodox, they were odious to the Revolutionists and Constitu- 
tionalists of a later date. In a word, thf^ foreigner might be 
likened to the travellers captured by the brigand Procrustes of 
ancient Greek fame who never by any chance fitted the couch 



THE FOREIGN PIONEER 83 

prepared for them and had to be adjusted by their host to the 
dimensions of the ever-ready grave. 

The pages of the Statute Book abound in enactments which 
convey a fair idea of the fluctuating status of foreigners in 
Mexico. Hardly was the country an independent community 
when a law was passed forbidding them to purchase land with- 
out a special authorisation from the State legislature or the 
Federal Congress, whereas other countries — with a few excep- 
tions such as that of pre-war Finland — dispensed with such re- 
strictions. A few years after the declaration of independence 
a clause was introduced into the Constitution prohibiting the 
purchase of land by any outlander unless he first became 
naturalised. 

Porfirio Diaz' advent to power constituted a land-mark in 
the history of Mexico's attitude towards immigration. En- 
couragement to foreigners was the corner stone of his policy. 
They became a privileged order in the State. They revere 
his memory accordingly and still wistfully yearn for a return 
of the paradise lost. Mexican historians affirm, on the other 
hand, that if Diaz transformed the Republic into a paradise 
for those outlanders who were building up the finances of the 
nation, he made it a hell or at any rate a purgatory for the 
native who was expected to bear and forbear and was shot 
down or banished if he displayed the slightest symptom ^f 
active discontent. It is alleged by that President's admirers 
that this severity was a political necessity. If so, it was un- 
fortunate not merely for the victims but also for the country 
and for the Dictator's reputation. He has, it is true, been 
apotheosised by the grateful foreign element to whose danc- 
ing he accommodated his music. They belaud him for having 
preserved exemplary order in the Republic. But his own 
countrymen anathematise him because, according to them, the 
only order preserved was purely mechanical depending upon 
downright coercion while the principal object for which he 
established it was undisturbed tenure of power for himself and 
his friends. At all events the natives whenever they were, or 
were suspected of being, unruly or restless received short 
shrift, the innocent being mowed down together with the so- 



V 



84. MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

called guilty, while the fortune-hunter from abroad was a 
superior being in whose favour the laws were stretched or 
violated to suit his needs or his convenience. Indeed if Mexi- 
can history is to be trusted, some of these proteges of Diaz 
resembled that pious member of the upper class who once 
asked: "Why ever did God give bones to the fishes, seeing 
that we, his favoured creatures, cannot eat them ?" 

The unbiased historian is thus forced to the conclusion that 
until General Obregon became President none of the govern- 
ments that had theretofore watched over the destinies of 
Mexico contrived to strike the happy medium between the two 
extremes represented by Don Porfirio and Don Venustiano 
respectively. The former neglected or sacrificed his people 
for the sake of the foreign element, whereas the latter some- 
times denied common justice to that foreign element in the 
name of his fellow-countrymen but without benefiting these. 
Both Presidents exhibited courage in working out their respec- 
tive policies to the consequences of which they ultimately 
succumbed, both regimes dying of political apoplexy. But 
still greater courage is required by him who would assume 
the prosaic and commonplace function of meting out simple 
justice to each of the elements, native and foreign, and brave 
the resentment of each. And that is the attitude of General 
Obregon. 

To scrutinise the ordering established by former Presidents, 
therefore, in the hope of finding examples of statecraft there, 
would be like going to a member of Diaz' rural police for a 
description of the beauties of the Mexican landscape. 

The foreign element which has experienced such varied 
treatment still forms the abiding feature of international in- 
terest in current Mexican history. Indeed the future of the 
Republic is so closely bound up with the aspirations and striv- 
ings of those professional wealth-creators and their respective 
governments that the two have become well nigh indissoluble. 
They resemble the famous wooden horse introduced into 
beleaguered Troy by the wily Greeks as a boon and a talisman 
but which was filled with armed enemies of the doomed city. 
It cannot be too often repeated that the benefits which 



THE FOREIGN PIONEER 85 

Mexico has received for those adventurous fortune-seekers 
are valuable and perhaps imperfectly appreciated by the coun- 
try of their temporary adoption. It was their labour that 
drained swamps, reclaimed vast stretches of desert and im- 
parted to them the agricultural value which they possess 
to-day. As Holland may be said to have been recovered and 
preserved from the sea by the exertions of her hardy sons, 
so a certain section of Mexico has been snatched from the 
swamp and the wilderness by groups of foreign pioneers who 
drained this region and provided that one with water by con- 
structing dams, culverts and canals. These benefactors were 
not the natives. The Mexicans and their governments have 
accomplished hardly anything in this direction, have in fact 
undertaken little or nothing for lack of money or initiative. 
During the revolutionary epoch they even squandered con- 
siderable sums in flashy enterprises, pulling down what others 
had built up, and grudged the requisite funds for the redeem- 
ing of arid land. There are laurels to be culled on a field of 
battle which never grow in fields of rice, cotton or sugar cane. 
And several of the men who formerly rough-hewed the desti- 
nies of the nation were ambitious to figure in the limelight of 
a national theatre. They hungered after plaudits and triumphs 
or power or pelf. The prospect of unostentatiously benefiting 
the bulk of their fellow-countrymen without having their 
services blazoned abroad had no attraction for them. 

To English-speaking pioneers, therefore, Mexico owes much 
of what has been achieved for her In the way of land-reclama- 
tion. These men staked their money, devoted their time, ap- 
plied their skill and labour to this task of making part of 
Grod's earth better than they found it, and while enriching 
themselves benefited their fellow-men. Their qualifications 
were enterprise, capacity for hard work, perseverance and 
thrift. Their incentive was not a State subsidy, not a bribe 
in any shape or form, but a desire to receive a large return 
for their labour, and to some extent also the instinct of their 
race to behave like the steward In the Gospel story and, instead 
of burying the talent confided to them, to augment it and 
leave themselves and others the better for the trust. Beyond 



86 MEXICO OX THE VERGE 

these conscious motives and semi-conscious instincts there was 
seldom any stimulus and hardly ever an unworthy one. And 
General Obregon has always been ready and eager to acknowl- 
edge the debt of gratitude which his country owes to these 
individual pioneers and to encourage their enterprise by every 
legitimate means. But wealthy companies and powerful asso- 
ciations belong to a different category and some of them 
have lived up to the proverbial description that they have no 
conscience to be scared, no soul to be saved and no body to be 
whipped. 

Take the oil wells, for example. Mexicans argue that when 
the credit account of the American oil companies has been 
made up to the last item and all the benefits accruing to the 
nation from their activities have been duly recorded, the master 
fact remains that they entered the Republic solely to make 
colossal fortunes and without the faintest trace of altruistic 
motive. This is not a reproach but merely a circumstance 
which deprives them of the benefit of their plea of altruism. 
And to these colossal fortunes there are no bounds except 
those which Nature set to ]Mexico's resources. The appetite 
grows on what it consumes. They want all that can be ex- 
tracted from the country — ]\Iexicans allege — and hold that 
they are therefore entitled to protest against the laws, object 
to the Constitution, veto official acts of the Executive and aid 
and abet disafifected natives who are plotting against the 
Government. Does this attitude, do the riches which they 
have speedily acquired, it is asked, entitle them to such influ- 
ence over the internal ordering of the Republic as no Mexican 
citizen ever wields? How little thought these corporations 
take of the lot of the natives may be gathered from their wist- 
ful yearning to see embodied anew in a government after their 
own liking the odious maxims of the Diaz regime under which 
the native population was treated as manure for the growth 
of foreign culture and prosperity. 

Thus the dispute between the foreigner and the native 
resolves itself into the contention of the former that he enjoys 
an indefeasible right — which he is warranted in enforcing — 
not merely to exploit the mineral wealth of Mexico but also 



THE FOREIGN PIONEER 87 

to establish there all the conditions which he deems necessary 
to the successful pursuit of this legitimate object. Hence the 
legislation of the country must be accommodated to that and 
a mechanism devised by which the Government which repre- 
sents the principal foreign elements shall be at once the judge 
and the executor of the appropriate measures. Hence the de- 
mand, not yet hall-marked by the State Department in Wash- 
ington but voiced by influential politicians and strenuously 
advocated by the Association for the Protection of American 
Rights in Mexico and the American Association of Mexico, 
that the Constitution of 19 17 be repealed and a treaty con- 
cluded with the United States which will confer upon that 
country the rights and privileges of guardianship and bestow 
upon Mexico all the boons and blessings at present enjoyed 
by Cuba. 



CHAPTER IX 
The Outlander and the Mexican 

It has frequently been complained that the foreign capi- 
talist in Mexico never gets credit for altruism and seldom for 
fairness. That grounds have occasionally been given for these 
allegations it would be idle to deny. In Mexico, as in most 
European countries, the foreigner is often regarded with dis- 
trust not so much by the common people as by the educated 
classes who are acquainted with the history of their country 
and of its relations with its great northern neighbour. They 
have not forgotten that some years ago the Republic extended 
its power over more than twice the territory which it occupies 
to-day, nor the circumstances in which it lost the larger half of 
its possessions to the United States. Neither are they ignorant 
of the desire of an influential party in that Republic at present 
to obtain possession of Lower California — by purchase if 
possible, but by hook or by crook. Those among thinking 
Mexicans who are given to reading remember the significant 
words of that straightforward, upright Arr^prican sociologist 
who wrote : "We have inherited our full share of the appetite 
which I have called political earth-hunger. Internal troubles 
and the time required to digest the last meal have allayed it for 
a period, hut it will awaken again." ^ And many fear that 
the question of the sources of the Colorado River and Lower 
California are already whetting it. 

It is not the people of the United States who are to be 
blamed for such machinations. The bulk of the nation has 
never been a party to them, has in fact sincerely and vainly 
deprecated them. But one of the political characteristics of 
the people is their readiness at all times to rally round their 
Government, whatever its party-colour, and however pro- 

1 Earth-Hunger and Other Essays, by W. G. Sumner. Yale University 
Press, 1914. P. SI. The italics are mine. 

88 



OUTLANDER AND MEXICAN 89 

foundly it may dissent from a given policy. What the Mexi- 
cans consequently behold is a great nation which contrives to 
win a reputation for disinterestedness, nay for altruism, yet 
goes on preserving that good name in the world while repre- 
hensible manoeuvres are being carried out by its chosen repre- 
sentatives or by a clique which influences these, for the purpose 
of dispossessing weak neighbours of their territory or depriv- 
ing them of their sovereignty. That these wily tactics should 
be undertaken by imperialistic States which make no claim to 
"righteousness" and are ready to plead necessity's immunity 
from law, is natural and carries with it such compensation as 
the moral reprobation of right minded people confers. But 
when those unjustifiable acts are labelled "amity," "humani- 
tarianism," "moral guidance," the nation that suffers thereby 
is stung to the quick. Resentment in such cases is as in- 
evitable as a manifestation of the law of gravity, and distrust 
is an instinctive impulse. The thief, Mexicans say, is not he 
who steals well but he vv^ho keeps the stolen property and his 
good name to boot. 

The plodding, self-reliant, Enghsh-speaking wrestlers with 
the brute forces of Nature whose life-purpose is an unending 
struggle have little in common with the expansive, explosive, 
simple-minded and generous people in whose midst they live 
and labour. Their standards of progress, their social concepts, 
their outlook upon life are widely different. We behold on the 
one side practical sense, stubborn will-power, dogged tenacity, 
indomitable courage, while on the other we discern specious 
theories and distracted misgivings, an innate bent towards 
unfruitful discussion and a frequent short-circuit between 
saying and doing. The one set of men are able and willing 
to grapple with undertakings which the other can conclusively 
prove to be impossible — until they are achieved. The former 
can boldly set to work at a task with seemingly little hope of 
accomplishing it and go on with it perseveringly without even 
the encouragement of partial success. The latter are wanting 
alike in initiative and constancy, are hampered by a feminine 
solicitude about the prospects and by an imagination so lively, 
nimble and Protean that it assumes the shape of well nigh 



90 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

everything that affects it. Hence their courage rises and falls 
in sympathy with external forces, and although they are bril- 
liant and generous and courageous to a heroic degree, their 
energy can seldom be calculated with certainty or employed 
w-ith method. In a journey of, say, a hundred miles the most 
difficult laps for the average Mexican are the beginning and 
the end, and when he has covered ninety miles he is still but 
half-way through. 

From the ingrained incapacity of the two races to under- 
stand each other flows much of the bitterness which renders 
fruitful co-operation between them, except on terms of rank 
inequality, impracticable. And to that cause may be traced 
the inability of the English-speaking foreigner to fathom 
what is meant by national dignity in connection with the de- 
mand for a treaty before recognition, and the incapacity of 
the Mexican to realise the trend of the cosmic currents of the 
new era. And yet the matter is really simple. 

The Mexican's distrust of foreigners, deep-rooted in recent 
history, still receives pabulum from many of the foreigners 
themselves who display a contemptuous disregard for the 
forms of intercourse prevalent in the country. They come 
unprovided with the small change of social life w^hich enables 
individuals to meet and converse on neutral ground and ex- 
change courtesies which although void of reality are helpful 
as a bridge to friendship or to good fellowship. It may be 
objected that the forms in use are exaggerated and meaning- 
less and that the serious man of business cannot afford to 
devote part of his precious time to complying with them. But 
experience has disposed of the objection without altering the 
procedure of the strangers. It has shown that great issues 
are sometimes dependent on small matters of fonn. A frail 
thread for his hand, of no value as a support, is enough to 
enable many a man to cross a narrow bridge over a precipice 
who would not attempt the feat if this inadequate but impor- 
tant aid were lacking. The w^eakest of withes will bind great 
bundles of wood. 

The American residents in ^Mexico are admittedly the prin- 
cipal trespassers against the social enclosures of the Mexican 



OUTLANDER AND MEXICAN 91 

people. They seldom have an inkling of the mental mechanism 
of the Spaniard or the Indian, nor do they care what impres- 
sion their own brusque behaviour produces. The capitalist, 
in particular, relies entirely upon the irresistible power of gold; 
the aggrieved commoner upon the force of his arguments to 
move his hearers and win their support. Upon the personal 
factor they hardly ever lay stress. Nay, they frequently scoff 
at it. Atnericans who are nothing if not realists trust entirely 
to the legitimacy of their business, to its alleged beneficial 
results for the Mexican people, and care nothing for the "silly 
scraping and bowing and complimenting" which goes on 
sempiternally among the natives who, like the Spaniards, are 
sticklers for form. 

It is pathetic to watch the coming together of the average 
representatives of two races and to note how their best in- 
terests are often permanently damaged by the veriest trifles 
which the one regards as essential and the other scouts as 
ridiculous. The foreign pioneer of the highest type is a 
diamond in the rough who for lack of polish is not recognised 
for what he is — a fine, honest, clean man who works hard, lives 
thriftily, wishes well to all men and asks for no privileges. 
He appears in his shirt sleeves, possibly spits on the floor, 
employs an obnoxious nickname to designate the Mexican, 
claps him on the back after a few minutes' acquaintance and 
is at no pains to learn his "lingo." In a word, he brings his 
country and often his village with him, unwittingly treats the 
natives as intruders and deems himself to be the mountain 
to which Mohammed himself must pilgrimage. 

The two types move on different planes. Race divergencies, 
national traditions and diversity of aims have been suggested 
as the explanation. And it is true that the Americanised 
"Anglo-Saxon" and the Latinised Indian personify, not as is 
commonly assumed, two epochs of one and the same civilisa- 
tion but two wholly distinct cultural ideals and tendencies — 
artificially dwarfed in the one and highly developed in the 
other but none the less specifically different. This assertion 
may smack of political heresy but time will show how close it 
is to the reality. For one thing, the man of English speech. 



92 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

particularly on the Western shore of the Atlantic, is more 
responsive to the pressure of material needs, more solicitous 
about economics, more intent upon conquering the forces of 
Nature than the highest type of Latinised American, who 
takes after the Celt and the Slav. But the root of the matter 
lies in the circumstance that the English speaking resident, 
however low the rung of the social ladder on which he himself 
may stand, looks down upon the native as upon an inferior 
who is disqualified to ascend it. The consciousness of this 
inequality is ever present to the man of English speech who 
lacks the social charm, the exquisite politeness, which among 
all Latinised Americans are indispensable passports to fruitful 
co-operation. "How many bitternesses," wrote the famous 
French statesman Turgot, "have their origin in a word, in 
forgetfulness of some slight observances. . . . How many 
persons of understanding have we taken for fools?" 

A concrete instance which occurred during my stay in 
Mexico City of the way in which the wealth-creating foreigner 
wounds the sensitiveness of the Mexican without being con- 
scious of violating any social propriety, is perhaps worth 
recording. In October, 1920, two Houston excursionists 
were standing in the lobby of one of the principal banks 
of the capital when turning to a Mexican gentleman they 
inquired where they could quench their thirst. The per- 
son addressed is a well-known citizen who occupies an excep- 
tionally high position in the Republic. With the unfailing hos- 
pitality which characterises his countrymen he invited the 
strangers to accompany him and he duly offered them the 
beverages which they desired. Hardly had they emptied their 
glasses when they turned on their heels exclaiming — "Well, 
we must go now." The words "many thanks" were uttered 
not by the guests but by the host who had entertained them. 

The "typical Mexican" created by foreign caricaturists and 
cinematographists — the boisterous braggadocio who cuts the 
throats of the unarmed and takes to his heels when he scents 
danger even from afar — is a factitious monster nowhere to 
be encountered in the Republic. LIuman life is relatively 
cheap in Mexico and the individual lays It down without many 



OUTLANDER AND MEXICAN 93 

regrets. His physical endurance too outbids that of any 
European. And yet it is hard to convince the highly cultured 
foreigner that the current notions on the subject are saturated 
with fable and absurdity. In this connection and also inci- 
dentally as a sample of the bitter spirit engendered by news- 
paper lampoons, it may serve a useful purpose to reproduce 
a few remarks on this topic lately published by one of the fore- 
most periodicals of Mexico.^ They were evoked by the 
despatch of the American warships to Tampico and by the 
conditions there established for the genesis of a grave inter- 
national incident such as interventionists were eagerly antici- 
pating and prematurely discounting. 

"One day," writes this publicist, "a sensational episode sent 
a thrill to the hearts of the population of the entire American 
Continent. Mr. Wilson, then President of the United States, 
had sent warships to Mexican waters for the protection of 
American citizens. And a boat belonging to one of the cruisers 
and manned by thirteen marines went up the river beyond the 
town of Tampico and was there fallen upon by rebels. The 
assailants not merely stripped the vessel of everything it con- 
tained but took even the boots of the sailors. 

" The attacking party must have been strong numerically,* 
I thought, the moment I learned of the occurrence, thus to have 
despoiled of their belongings thirteen marines whom one must 
picture to oneself as thirteen veritable athletes. And viewed 
in this light the incident was invested with real importance, 
one might even say with an alarming character, although of 
course this would ultimately depend upon the mood of Mr. 
Wilson. 

"But shortly afterwards the official report drawn up by the 
Admiral in command of those vessels came in and one gathered 
from that considerate document that the formidable body of 
assailants consisted of three wretched lack-alls of whom only 
two carried arms and one of these withdrew almost at once, 
according to the Admiral's account. 

"Thus it turned out that the redoubtable posse of marauders 
was composed of two men, one of them provided with a wea- 
2 Senor Querido Moheno in El Universal of Mexico. 



94, MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

pon, the other unarmed, so that if we can imagine one of the 
thirteen burly marines taking charge of the defenceless bandit, 
there remained but one armed highwayman confronting the 
other twelve towers of strength. 

"On the river Tamesi then, on board of that boat the amus- 
ing story was rehearsed of those forty Galicians who let them- 
selves be robbed on the highroad because they were travelling 
'absolutely alone.' In like manner those twelve marines found 
themselves absolutely 'alone' face to face with a terrible Mexi- 
can bandit and as a matter of course there was nothing else for 
them to do but to allow themselves to be plundered without 
resistance. 

"Or take the punitive expedition headed by General Pershing 
which cost the United States Treasury the*trifie of one hundred 
and fifty million dollars. It consisted of twelve thousand men 
of four different kinds of arms, including aeroplanes, and was 
rigged out for the purpose of capturing Villa 'living or dead.' 
Well, when the General returned home (without Villa) the 
moving-picture shows of the United States presented night 
after night the portrait of Pershing with this pompous in- 
scription : 'The Pacifier of Mexico.' 

"Now if in the name of common sense one were to explain 
to these good people (of the United States) that incidents of 
this nature can take place only on the screen; if by quoting 
accounts of their own press one were to prove to them that 
among our many national defects that of cowardice cannot be 
assigned the smallest place. . . . : if one were to make it clear 
to them by abundant statistics that in our country human life 
is squandered w^ith the utmost ofifliandedness, by reason of the 
few attractions it offers; if, after all this, one were to unfold 
to them on the screen a moving picture of those twelve sturdy 
sinewy marines letting themselves be robbed by a sickly desti- 
tute tramp, and after that, if one were to bring home to them 
the fact that in Mexico, in any and every social layer, twelve 
men, whatsoever their condition might be, would stand and 
defend themselves were it only by using their teeth, against a 
solitary armed assailant. ... we should feel profoundly 
stnick to see their expressionless faces unmoved by the recital 



OUTLANDER AND MEXICAN 95 

while their blue child-like eyes were devoid of the faintest ray 
of light to suggest that they discerned the point."^ 

That the English-speaking foreigner regards the Mexican 
as an inferior type of human it would be idle to gainsay. His 
every act, his every ejaculation, betrays the feeling which 
occasional honeyed words can neither hide nor neutralise. 
Those tributes of praise which he airily tosses to his Mexican 
friends from time to time have no more practical significance 
than the yearly washing of beggars' feet by the Catholic 
monarchs of Italy and Spain. When the Mexican talks of 
national dignity the average Yankee sets him down as a 
mendacious "grafter" for whom patriotism Is, what Dr. John- 
son described it as being, the last refuge of blackguards. The 
ordinary American, in turn, is to the educated Mexican a 
righteous Puritan in seeming and a hard-fisted egotist in act- 
ing, whose philanthropy is not to be distinguished from the 
most sordid self-interest. But even conventional truth 
habitually lies somewhere between two extremes where most 
people are averse to seeking it. Many foreigners in Mexico 
flatter themselves that they know the natives thoroughly be- 
cause they had the luck to be present at a revolt, an onslaught 
of brigands or a murder which resembles the familiar domestic 
lynching. But the roots of racial character lie elsewhere. In 
the course of my travels I have observed that when enumerat- 
ing the selfish or domineering nations each nation is apt to 
make the excusable mistake of reckoning one too few. And 
to some extent it is the same when the classification turns upon 
inferior peoples and races. That, however, is a failing com- 
mon to individuals and nations alike. 

The typical outlander immigrates to Mexico in order to 
make money and return home as soon as possible to a com- 
fortable life in his native land. He seldom knows anything 
about the Spanish language and hardly ever masters Its gram- 
mar. The German is an exception. Before he starts for the 
Republic he endeavours to learn Spanish and what is more he 
acquaints himself with the outlines of Mexican history and 
with the customs of the people to which he unhesitatingly con- 
3£/ Universal, 8th July, 1921. 



96 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

forms. And his success in establishing good neighbourly rela- 
tions with the natives of his adopted country is in proportion 
to these exertions. 

How far apart from each other the native and the EngHsh- 
speaking foreigner really are may be gauged from a few 
words which once passed between two of their representatives. 
The Mexican being asked why his countrymen are looked down 
upon by the outlanders as the inferiors of these, replied — ■ 
"Because of our childish illusions." "Illusions?" "Yes. We 
suffer from many. For example we nearly all flatter our- 
selves that we are at home in Mexico and owe no apologies to 
any one for having been born there. Yet the attitude of for- 
eign residents among us proves that that is a silly mistake. 
Another of our self-deceptions derives from our habit of in- 
ferring the motives of our foreign guests from their behaviour 
which bespeaks selfish interests whereas we fail to pay due 
heed to their professions which go to show that the main- 
spring of their actions is pure philanthropy. But judicious 
propaganda is correcting these errors." 

In daily converse the English-speaking resident shows that 
he is separated from the Mexican by an abyss and he seldom 
seeks to bridge it over. The native population of Mexico, 
whatever one may think of its mental and moral equipment — 
and this is lamentably defective — undoubtedly possesses latent 
capacities which it would pay the country to cultivate and 
develop. After centuries of oppression, misery and forced 
ignorance to-day it is naturally at its worst. The mental and 
moral energies of the people, like the natural resources of the 
country, have been systematically wasted for ages. And a 
protracted civil war has put the finishing stroke to the work 
of demoralisation. And yet despite these tremendous handi- 
caps the bulk of the Mexican people is socially lovable, intel- 
ligent, mobile, truthful, honest and hospitable. The foreigners 
who fled the country during the revolutionary outburst and 
left their property to the care of the common Mexican peasant 
pay the highest tributes to his loyalty, courage and honesty. 
Many interesting stories are told of his devotion. The fol- 
lowing incident is of more recent date : President Obregon 



OUTLANDER AND MEXICAN 97 

issued a decree prohibiting the circulation of foreign moneys 
in the Republic, whereupon vast cases filled with American 
coins and paper were transported to the United States. And 
the representatives of the Company charged with the opera- 
tion are reported to have said that so long as they were on 
Mexican soil they had no misgivings about the safety of their 
precious cargo, but that once they had crossed the border and 
entered the United States they were in a continuous tremor 
lest it be wrested from them. 

Systematic efforts are being made by President Obregon 
and Sefior Vasconcellos, the Rector of the University, to pro- 
ceed to the education of the masses. And it would be an un- 
pardonable crime for any foreign State to baulk these begin- 
nings and turn the plastic elements of the Republic into human 
dynamite which is so apt to explode and would not only 
destroy their own political fabric but cause considerable dam- 
age to that of their neighbour. The endeavours of irresponsi- 
ble agents to foster revolts and rebellions with a view to clinch 
the argument for the "cleaning up" process are therefore 
among the deadliest crimes against humanity. 

It is a phenomenon well worth noting that despite the 
grinding conditions in which the people of Mexico have 
hitherto lived and worked, their inborn vitality is still excep- 
tionally vigorous. The innate racial force which, together 
with other characteristic traits, differentiates most of them 
from the Indians of the United States, exhibits itself in the 
ease with which they assimilate foreign elements of Latin, 
Slav and Teuton extraction. Intermarriages between Span- 
iards, Portuguese, French, Italians, Slavs and Mexicans are 
fairly frequent and the blend is said to be excellent from all 
points of view. But with the peoples of English speech such 
unions are rare. 

Without being gifted with special powers of observation, 
one may discern manifestations of a potent force of attraction 
— the attraction of material comfort — wielded by the Amer- 
ican people over the Mexicans, especially in the border States. 
And considering the poverty, ignorance and general helpless- 
ness of the latter as compared with the training, the strivings 



98 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

and the high standard of living prevalent among the former, 
the process, which is gradually gaining in intensity, is vi^hat 
one would naturally expect. On the part of the Mexican it 
may be described as a legitimate desire to better his social 
standing at a cost which he is incapable of appreciating, and 
on the American side as the overwhelming influence of material 
well-being and an abiding sense of general superiority radiat- 
ing to the uttermost limits of political consciousness. 

In various parts of the Mexican Republic then, especially 
in the border States and Yucatan, a process is going forward 
to which one is tempted to give the name of denationalisation. 
For it is gradually wearing away by erosion not only the 
defects, but certain of the national characteristics almost be- 
fore they have become definitely fixed. The economic ascend- 
ancy and cultural sway of the United States is a resultant 
of the enterprise, industry and pioneer spirit of the Anglo- 
Saxon on the one hand and of the quietistic dreaminess, fatal- 
istic bent and centrifugal tendencies of the Latinised Indian 
on the other. And it bids fair under present conditions to 
penetrate in the fulness of time from Mexicali in the North- 
west to San Cristobal in the Southeast before political unifi- 
cation can be completed. The operation of this tendency is 
noticeable to a greater or lesser degree in many States of 
the Mexican Union and in well-nigh every walk of life. The 
newspapers are passably faithful copies of the great dailies 
of New York in which one finds the same sensational head- 
lines, articles begun on the first page and continued on the 
seventh or eleventh, the voluminous Sunday editions with 
comic and illustrated supplements — often literal translations 
from New York newspapers — and most of the other attributes 
of the newest phase of journalism. Their advertisements are 
Spanish reproductions of those flashy hypnotising announce- 
ments with which Chicago, New York and San Francisco are 
familiar. The phraseology is identical and superlatively un- 
Mexican. The universities too have been largely modelled on 
those of the United States.* But the children of wealthy 

■* Under the present Rector, Don Jose Vasconcellos, a healthy reaction 

has begun. 



OUTLANDER AND MEXICAN 99 

Mexicans are being educated in North American schools and 
universities. Not only in frontier towns, but along the coast- 
line, east and west, United States money has practically ousted 
the Mexican currency out of circulation, and in Lower Cali- 
fornia even the telegraph and post offices insist on payment 
being made in dollars.^ The State of Sonora in the North 
and Northwest and that of Yucatan in the Southeast are yield- 
ing more readily than the others to these steady influences 
from the United States. Consequently the English language 
is making headway and Mexican servants capable of convers- 
ing in that tongue are to be had in the principal cities of the 
Republic. The vulgar fox-trot, cake-walk, one-step and tango 
have entirely supplanted the graceful Spanish jotas, sevillanas 
and other higher forms of terpsichorean diversion. Mexican 
and Spanish songs are being forgotten. The picturesque re- 
gional costumes are being discarded in favour of the graceless 
garb which denotes cultural progress. The tailors of New 
York and Boston create the fashion in men's costumes and 
hats. American dishes, canned peaches and pineapples, meats 
and fish find lucrative markets throughout the Republic. In 
a country which abounds in luscious fruits all the year round, 
the hotels serve only Calif ornian or Florida peaches, pears, 
cherries, etc., imported in glasses or tins. North American 
mannerisms in speech are being translated into Spanish and 
are coming into vogue among the pushing semi-intellectuals. 
In a word, Yankee is trump. 

The art of politics, as cultivated not in its heights, but in 
certain of its unsunned depths, was also imported, cut and 
dried, from the United States in the days when political moral- 
ity in the great Republic was at a somewhat lower level than 
that to which it has since attained. And it still holds the field. 
The United States system of federation, suited at best to 
Anglo-Saxons and which men like George Washington and 
Alexander Hamilton deemed too democratic even for them, 
is the charter which was adopted by the Mexican liberators 
for their unsophisticated fellow countrymen. Porfirio Diaz 

•• President Obregon has issued decrees dealing with this incongruity. 



100 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

rated it at its true value in private speech and public deed, as 
a serviceable instrument for politicians and lawyers to wrangle 
about, but hardly more. The part constantly played by many 
of the sovereign States of the Mexican Union has been dis- 
rupted. In a word, the inhabitants of the Southern Republic 
were thrown into a Medea's cauldron before being cast in a 
national mould. And if the influences to which they are sub- 
jected to-day — ^before they have become fully conscious as a 
nation — keep on operating at their present rate without any 
systematic national breakwater to withstand them, there can 
be no doubt that the Mexican people will emerge partially 
recreated in the image and likeness of their Americanised 
Anglo-Saxon model — a politico-cultural hybrid. It is merely 
a question of time, and that of a relatively brief span. 



CHAPTER X 

Oil and Water 

The capitalists and explorers who responded to Diaz' invi- 
tation were mostly men of the races whose enterprise, thor- 
oughness and staying powers have carried the world to its 
present cultural level. But soon after the Dictator's disap- 
pearance from the scene "there arose up a new king over 
Mexico which knew not Joseph," whereupon the attitude of 
the authorities towards foreign companies underwent a marked 
and infelicitous change. They were occasionally mulcted and 
harried, a few of their contracts were questioned, others for- 
mally annulled, some of their servants were killed by bandits 
and others maltreated or threatened. For the misdeeds of 
criminals during a revolutionary welter it is not easy to fix 
moral responsibility upon any administration. Moreover 
Mexico, in spite of the loud outcry against her "savagery" 
which has been raised abroad, can point to a much less bloody 
record than either France or Russia. Foreigners in particu- 
lar suffered less than elsewhere and much less than was appre- 
hended at the outset. But by gathering together in one com- 
pact record all the crimes perpetrated in the name of liberty 
or order during ten years of civil strife, by branding every 
Mexican with the mark of the bandit, the cutthroat or the 
ravisher, by creating odious types, attaching to them the badg^ 
of infamy and holding them up to universal opprobrium in 
moving pictures, it became possible to discredit a whole people 
in the eyes of the world. And that, Mexicans complain, is 
what has been, and still is being, done by the plutocratic little 
oil State which operates within the great Democratic State to 
the north of the Rio Grande. But as Edmund Burke put it, 
one cannot frame an indictment against a whole nation. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the revolutionary movement 
at its height was beyond the control of disciplined reason and 

101 



102 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

political expediency, the foreign element as a whole occupied 
a more or less privileged position even then. And yet the 
attitude which it assumed, like that of the clergy, was dis- 
tinctly antagonistic to every popular movement. Hostility to 
Madero, to the forces that attacked Victoriano Huerta, to 
Alvaro Obregon and to all democratic movements, whatever 
their origin or their object, invariably sought and found a 
rallying point in certain wealthy foreign residents. They 
upheld Diaz, they gave at least their "moral" support to 
immorality incarnate in Victoriano Huerta. they courted, en- 
couraged and struck up agreements with "coming politicians" 
of whom they have always a few in waiting, and they main- 
tained friendly intercourse with rebels throughout the coun- 
try. It may seem as incredible as it was reprehensible, but it 
is said to be a demonstrable fact, which will subsequently ap- 
pear evident to all, that this intercourse took on the character 
of — shall we call it moral guardianship? — and exposed the fair 
name of the people of the United States to aspersions merited 
only by certain of its 'servants. Even foreign diplomacy has 
been known to intervene unofficially and importunely on be- 
half of the discredited candidate of an anti-popular party and 
to have dangled before the eager eyes of the people's repre- 
sentatives the lure of quick recognition by a certain foreign 
power ! 

Now this aspect of current Mexican history is still a sealed 
book to those experts who claim to know the rights and wrongs 
of the subject and are looked up to for information and guid- 
ance by the statesmen of their respective countries. And yet 
it is a theme full of surprises. If a Mexican, spurred by mo- 
tives analogous to those which stimulated Mr. Fall, endowed 
with that politician's perseverance and supplied with the requi- 
site materials, were to set himself to compile a register of those 
breaches of hospitality — not to call them by a harsher name — 
he would shed a wholly new light upon Mexico's international 
relations and possibly contribute to modify the policy of the 
watching and waiting Powers who are fitfully groping their 
way in darkness. 

In view of those and other provocations, it is well worth 



OIL AND WATER 103 

noting that during the period termed "confiscatory" by foreign 
interventionists the oil companies were doing a flourishing 
business. President Obregon himself has supplied the follow- 
ing figures, which make it clear that whoever else was feeling 
the heavy hand of misfortune, the foreign oil companies were 
thriving: "In the year 1917 the companies exported 42,545,853 
barrels of oil; in 1918, 51,768,110; 1919, 77,703,289; 1920, 
151,058,257; 1921, January to May inclusive, 76,493,564; 
probable production for 1921, 190,000,000 barrels. 

"Does this steady increase indicate that the Mexican Gov- 
ernment has been placing any obstacles in the way of develop- 
ment or that during the Great War it sought to hamper the 
United States by crippling oil export?"^ 

But the errors, prejudices and bad faith of one party to 
the present dispute should not be allowed to blind' one to the 
blunders and shortcomings of the other. Nor would any sur- 
vey of the origins of the present impasse, however summary, 
be complete without some account of the grievances of foreign 
investors. If moral responsibility for the acts of bandits and 
other criminals cannot be laid on the shoulders of either of the 
belligerents in a civil war, the functioning of judicial institu- 
tions in peace time undoubtedly concerns the constituted Gov- 
ernment and forms an essential part of its responsibilities. 
And on this score one must admit that the complaints uttered 
against the Mexican tribunals are too often well founded. 
Neither the legal procedure nor the subsequent sanction attains 
or comes near to the standard accepted in English-speaking 
countries. Hence the rooted aversion displayed by so many, 
Mexicans and foreigners, to carry their claims into one of the 
law courts. There are instances not a few in which avoidable 
procrastination has defeated the ends of justice, and others in 
which a manifest — or what appeared to be a manifest — ^viola- 
tion of rights was countenanced or winked at by the authorised 
administrators of the law. President Obregon has since de- 
voted much time and study to this fundamental question, and 
among the first fruits of his investigation was a bill amend- 

^To the New York World, June 27th, 1921. 



104 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

ing and simplifying legal procedure. But as yet much remains 
to be done. 

It may not be amiss to offer here a concrete case of real 
hardship which the present writer has taken the trouble to 
investigate on the spot. The details he took from the official 
records. 

A few years ago the Yaqui Valley - consisted of arid land 
of which only 3,750 acres had been reclaimed. The rest was 
not cultivated for lack of water. An Anglo-American Com- 
pany which has since become wholly American ^ entered into 
a contractual arrangement with the Mexican Government and 
without any subsidy or even land grant bound itself to con- 
struct at a cost of some twelve million dollars (U. S. cur- 
rency) a system whereby permanent irrigation would be sup- 
plied not only to its own holdings but also to the entire area 
of the Yaqui Valley susceptible of irrigation — approximately 
750,000 acres. The Company estimated that with a fair 
supply of water the district might be made to produce an- 
nually some twenty million dollars' worth of crops and live 
stock. 

On the strength of this calculation those men of English 
speech went to work, staked their capital, devoted their time 
and applied their experience and skill to the realisation of this 
dream of betterment. The incentive w^as the innate pioneer 
impulse of the Aryan race coupled with the prospect of mak- 
ing their venture a financial and technical success. One of 
the first needs of the district was railway communication — 
and one of the first achievements of the Company was a trans- 
action with the South Pacific Railway Co. which had for its 
effect the construction of a line from the port of Guaymas 
in an easterly direction through the Yaqui Valley, a distance 
of 154 miles, which in time will form an iron way of 800 
miles down the West Coast, thus closing the present gap in 
railway communication along the Pacific seaboard from Brit- 
ish Columbia to Central America.* 

- In the State of Sonora. 

^ La Compania Constructora Richardson. 

•* To Guadalajara. The line covers already nearly "00 miles. 



OIL AND WATER 105 

The Company also made and maintained 400 miles of roads 
with over 100 bridges and thus contributed materially to the 
breaking down of some of the natural partitions which tend 
to keep Mexican from Mexican and isolate the Republic from 
the outside world. 

The material achievements just enumerated nowise ex- 
hausted the task on which these forerunners of the higher 
civilisation had embarked. Another was, as has been said, 
irrigation. Lack of water in season is one of the scourges of 
Mexico. If the country could reckon upon an adequate 
amount of rainfall at the right periods, it would be a veritable 
paradise, a granary of the human race. But dry farming un- 
der the actual climatic conditions of the Valley is in some 
cases a lottery which ruins him who buys a ticket and in other 
cases a sheer impossibility. 

Over and above those contractual obligations the Company 
discharged functions of a most helpful kind which ought 
properly to have been fulfilled by a State institution. It sur- 
veyed the land most carefully, metre by metre, prepared tables 
classifying each kind of soil such as sandy loam, red loam, 
red clay, salt loam, etc., determined the exact area of each, 
listed the crops that will best grow on them in the order of 
their suitableness and calculated by actual experiment the num- 
ber of irrigations requisite and the total volume of water that 
each crop would need on each variety of soil. Over and 
above all this, its officials gathered and classified a body of 
precious meteorological data for each day of the year, giving 
the state of the atmosphere, the temperature, the relative hu- 
midity, the velocity and direction of the wind, etc. In pos- 
session of these observations for a period of ten years, one 
can now foretell with such a degree of accuracy when a frost 
may occur that all danger of damage to the crops from this 
source has been practically eliminated. 

In the eastern section of the Valley cultivation had already 
increased from 3,750 to 27,000 acres, and was proceeding 
apace when the depredations of the Yaqui Indians forced 
the Company to suspend work. During the ten years of Revo- 
lution it went on supplying water to all applicants and for a 



106 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

considerable time accepted payment therefor in worthless pa- 
per currency. It gave its workmen a wage varying from 50 
to 75 cents (U. S. currency) a day. Those in truth were 
lean years. 

For thirteen years it has never paid a dividend. 

Those services were never properly appreciated by the local 
authorities. Not only was the Company denied protection 
against the Yaquis and bandits, but the duly established State 
government is affirmed to have endeavoured systematically by 
taxation to despoil them of the land which they owned. The 
rate of taxation had been fixed by contract for ten years, end- 
ing in September, 1919, but in 1916 this basis was rejected 
by the authorities as inadequate. As soon as a stretch of land 
became cultivable by irrigation, the Company sold it, as it 
was bound by contract to do. The result was that it never 
had more than a small percentage of soil capable of being 
tilled, the rest being grazing land. Yet the authorities in- 
sisted on taxing all its possessions as though they were all 
under cultivation, whereas only two per cent came under this 
head. 

In the year 1916, it is further alleged, the Governor of 
Sonora raised the taxes thirty times more than the proper 
rate. The motive which he adduced was the advisability of 
splitting up large estates. The Company refused to pay this 
impost, whereupon the State Government proceeded to sell 
the property. Here, however, Mr. Lansing interposed a pro- 
test in the name of the United States Government, adding that 
the Company's position was "unassailable in law and in mor- 
als." None the less the contract was cancelled by a Mexican 
military decree, but the Company was not apprised of this 
arbitrary act which came to its knowledge quite casually when 
its representative was handing in the amount of the legal taxes 
due. 

As the Revolution rendered the carrying out of the contract 
impossible, the Company petitioned that the term fixed be 
extended in consequence. For Yaquis were overrunning the 
district, bandits had killed the live stock, railway communica- 
tions had ceased. But the Carranza Government turned a 



OIL AND WATER 107 

deaf ear to the request.^ An appeal was thereupon made to 
the Federal District Court, but this tribunal declared itself in- 
competent, whereupon the Company inquired what tribunal 
was competent. But the question was never answered. 

That is one instance of the reception accorded to foreign 
pioneers whose co-operation is one of Mexico's greatest assets. 
It afforded General Obregon, who sees things in correct per- 
spective, an opportunity to show the stuff he is made of. He 
had no sooner acquainted himself with the preposterous in- 
crease of taxation and the consequences drawn from the Com- 
pany's refusal to pay than he gave orders that the Company 
be dealt with as justice required. And it received satisfaction 
forthwith. 

The oil companies profess to have a similar dirge to sing 
and they have chanted it in many keys. But between the two 
cases there is no parity. The discovery and exploitation of 
mineral oil in Mexico is from one angle of vision a romance 
fraught with interest as intense as that which is still aroused 
by the adventures and misdeeds of Cortes and Pizarro. The 
history of the origins of that branch of industry if written 
without bias or reticence by the right kind of chronicler — a 
man with a spark of genial fire — would yield a human docu- 
ment worthy to outlive most of the "immortal" works of the 
past hundred years. Like many other discoveries, that of oil 
in Mexico has brought worry and anxiety to the country that 
produced it. It may be compared to the gold of the Rhine, a 
blessing and a curse in one. Many a Mexican fervently 
wishes oil had never been deposited in his ill-fated fatherland 
or else that his country were situated on some other Conti- 
nent ; and many a Yankee regrets that the source of this pre- 
cious liquid is not placed in some region where North Ameri- 
cans are better appreciated or more free to change the laws and 
constitution congruously with their interests. 

One may readily trace the genesis of the waves of critical 

^It is fair to note that the matter — like the anti-Japanese legislation in 
California — lay between the Company and the Sovereign State of Sonora 
and that the Federal courts in Mexico as in the United States are not 
competent to try such cases. To my thinking this is one of many argu- 
ments against the Federal State system in the Mexican Republic. 



108 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

feeling in Mexico which for long have been angrily beating 
against the men who first unlocked the mineral treasure house, 
gave the precious oil to the world and claim to be regarded 
as benefactors of the race. Like Rhine-gold, oil is power — 
economical, political, social power — and the concentration of 
such power in the hands of a few citizens of a foreign Re- 
public in whose national life the political spirit is as domi- 
nant as is greed of gold, fills with apprehension a community 
of people like the Mexicans who in politics are children almost 
devoid of social coherency and sadly deficient In the self- 
protecting faculty inherent in most political communities. 
This feeling is enhanced by the enormous importance attached 
by the American people and Government not only to the pro- 
duction of oil but to the establishment of such a system of 
governance in the country where it is found as will suit the 
varied requirements of those who exploit it. For this is the 
fKDint on which the dispute between the two parties really 
hinges. 

Mr. E. L. Doheny, an accepted authority in these matters, 
publicly announced some time ago that the oil supply from 
Mexico "has come to be regarded as a part of the available 
petroleum supply essential to meet the demands of our mar- 
kets. . . . Consideration of this phase of the petroleum situa- 
tion immediately raises the conjecture as to the probability of 
this reliance being supported by a definitely declared policy 
on the part of our Government to encourage and protect its 
citizens in the lawful acquisition and development in foreign 
countries of those essential raw products which include petro- 
leum and many others well known to our men of industry." ® 

This statement is lucid, comprehensive and significant. 
"Without the continued importation to the United States of 
the production of the wells of American companies in Mexico," 
he goes on to say, "the Shipping Board might just as well plan 
to use coal on practically all of its fleet after April ist next; 
many industries, including railroads of the South and facto- 
ries of the East, may just as well look forward to reconverting 

"Interview of E. L. Doheny. Esq.. with press representative, Los 
Angeles, California, December gth, igig, p. 6. The italics are mine. 



OIL AND WATER 109 

their plants from the use of oil to the use of coal, and the cities 
of the East, including New York City, that are planning to 
use fuel oil in lieu of coal for heating purposes may just as 
well abandon the idea, because the supply of fuel oil for all 
these needs is not and will not be available from the produc- 
tion of United States oil fields. They are dependent upon un- 
interrupted supply from Mexico for the present and immediate 
future." ^ 

"The strained relations between the United States and Mex- 
ico can, I think, very well be classified as being of a three- 
fold nature, all included under the expression, Tnternational 
Obligations.' " ' 

Mr. Doheny then goes on to say that the three points of 
difference between the two Governments are the failure of the 
Mexican Government (i.e., the Carranza administration) to 
protect Americans engaged in lawful and peaceful pursuits in 
the Republic, the failure of the Government to prevent the 
spread of bolshevism (!) from Mexico to the United States, 
and its repeated attempts to confiscate valuable properties right- 
fully acquired by Americans under Mexican law. 

Since those significant utterances were penned Carranza 
and his regime have vanished from the scene and the new head 
of the Government is redressing grievances, correcting mis- 
takes, returning property wrongfully sequestered and generally 
administering justice to all with a firm hand. And he is full 
of hope that all complainants and creditors will be content. 
This hope, however, is not shared by all his countrymen. 
What sceptical Mexicans are apprehensive of is lest the foreign 
elements should be carried by a strong impetus of right not 
merely to the point of Its enforcement but by the vis inertiae 
far beyond that. Vaulting into the saddle they may alight 
on the other side and trespass on Mexico's reserved ground. 
. . . Asserting their rights they may demand privileges. In- 
sisting on protection they may prescribe the kind of laws by 
which it should be secured and establish a precedent destruc- 
tive of Mexican sovereignty. And their reading of recent 

"^ Ibidem, p. 7. 
* Ibidem, p. 9. 



no MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

American history appears to them to bear out this apprehen- 
sion. 

Well grounded or imaginary, this misgiving is a fact and 
therefore a force to be reckoned with, just as is the belief 
of many Americans that the Mexicans are incapable of any 
kind of self-government and therefore ripe for the status of 
wardship. 

The main grievance of English-speaking oil magnates in 
Mexico turns upon Article 27 of the last Constitution.® In 
principle this enactment disqualifies foreigners collectively and 
individually from acquiring or holding mines, oil wells or land 
in the Republic unless they renounce in advance their right 
to appeal to their respective Governments against laws which 
they may deem unjust or vexatious. It also declares that all 
minerals — solids, liquid or gaseous — are vested in the nation 
and consequently that the rights of ownership hitherto con- 
ferred by purchase according to law will from the date of the 
promulgation of the Constitution cease to be attainable by na- 
tives or foreigners. 

There is, however, another article in the same Constitution 
which provides that retroactive force shall not be given to 
these new canons. But it was ignored in some cases by Presi- 
dent Carranza, as were the official representations of the State 
Department in Washington, and the principle of nationalisa- 
tion was applied in certain decrees which, according to some 
jurisconsults, he had no power to issue. 

The effect of that innovation upon the outlanders who had 
discovered and exploited petroleum, enriching themselves and 
to a limited extent benefiting the country in the process, can 
well be imagined. They held that it was calculated to despoil 
them of what was theirs by law and equity. It struck at the 
roots of private property. It violated solemn promises made 
by spokesmen of the nation. The decrees that embody it were 
held by many to be illegal. The Constitution which provoked 
those decrees was stigmatised by certain jurisconsults as a 
violation of the preceding Constitution and therefore devoid 
of legal force. The protests from Washington, London and 

* Framed at Queretaro in 1917. 



OIL AND WATER 111 

Paris nullified in advance the application of those decrees to 
American, British and French citizens. But with Carranza 
these considerations went for nought. He held that oil hav- 
ing acquired a wholly new value the Government in the inter- 
ests of the nation could readjust the terms of the original grant. 
Some oil-bearing lands duly purchased he wrested from their' 
rightful owners. Appeals for protection filed by the injured 
parties in the Supreme Court were left unanswered and all 
that was vouchsafed these were arguments purporting to show 
that their interests were not really impaired. 



CHAPTER XI 
Taxation or Confiscation? 

Two interesting illustrations of Mexico's entanglements are 
worth recording. They show how defenceless she is before her 
great northern neighbour and how incumbent it is on this 
neighbour to use its strength sparingly and in accordance with 
the promptings of reason and humanity. To-day General 
Obregon as President of the Republic has but one sheet anchor 
of salvation — the consciousness that his policy is based on 
justice and the hope that interest no less than principle may 
impel the present businesslike Administration of the United 
States to give him the requisite time and opportunity to un- 
fold it. 

Hampered by a relatively light foreign debt for the settle- 
ment of which creditors and politicians are daily clamouring, 
the Obregon Cabinet is at its wits' end to find the wherewithal 
to pay the interest. And unless it can hit upon some happy 
device, the country will soon fall under an international finan- 
cial as well as an American moral tutelage. Usually necessi- 
tous governments have the choice between taxation and a loan. 
But Mexico is an exception. Not yet recognised by the only 
country able to lend her money, her rulers are obliged to ob- 
tain a contribution to the service of the foreign debt by taxing 
what will bear taxation. And that is oil. There is no other 
way. Accordingly General Obregon has recently increased the 
tax on crude oil produced in the country by an average, it is 
computed, of twenty-five per cent and decreed that the pro- 
ceeds shall not be swept into the bottomless pit of wasteful 
expenditure but shall be applied exclusively in making pay- 
ments on the foreign debt. This measure is gall and worm- 
wood to those companies which possessing no refineries in 
Mexico will have to pay the augmented impost. Their repre- 
sentatives in Washington immediately called the attention of 

112 



TAXATION OR CONFISCATION? 113 

the State Department to the decree which they regard as il- 
legal in form and "virtual confiscation" in effect, and there- 
fore a twofold crime in international law. They moved that 
the State Department should include their complaint in its 
list of claims against the Mexican Government which would 
then be compelled to adjust its Constitution, its legislation and 
its taxation to the best interests of the powerful oil interests. 
Thus the camel's hump would follow his nose into the Mexi- 
can tent. 

President Obregon contemplates the issue from the same 
angle of vision as did Russia's eminent financier, the late Count 
Witte, whose opinion may be summarised as follows. Taxa- 
tion is an essentially democratic measure. It furthers the in- 
terest of labour which has a right to demand that as large a 
share as is safely possible of the indispensable public expen- 
diture shall be defrayed by taxes on capital. To-day this is 
a recognised maxim everywhere and a peremptory necessity 
in the Mexican State which sorely needs money wherewith to 
heal the wounds inflicted by ten years of anarchy and to un- 
dertake reforms without which the State cannot long subsist. 
And at present money can be had only within the boundaries 
of the Republic. None of the ordinary devices are of avail. 
Economy presupposes a fairly well filled Exchequer — a boon 
which Mexico has not enjoyed since the days of Limantour. 
Moreover thrift, however stringently practised, would contrib- 
ute nothing towards the service of the foreign debt, seeing 
that the pinch of penury is felt in all departments. And at 
the moment when more money is required than ever before 
all hopes of a foreign loan are coincidentally barred by what 
may be termed the Triple Alliance of American, British and 
French bankers, which has imposed on Mexico a politico-finan- 
cial boycott. 

Every effort made therefore in these conditions to hinder 
the imposition of adequate taxes on oil is at the same time 
a clever manoeuvre to tighten the noose round the neck of the 
Mexican State. And this is the construction put upon it by 
Mexican statesmen. 

The only way to ease even partially a situation like this, 



114 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

which is as painful as it is dangerous, is taxation, and to this ex- 
pedient every country in the world is having abundant recourse 
today. Indeed in some progressive States taxation has been 
raised to a level not far removed from confiscation. In others, 
as in Germany and Sweden, the Governments have compelled 
the great industries to admit them as partners with a right 
to a share in the profits. Against these innovations private 
corporations and individuals have loudly murmured but in no 
case have their respective Governments ventured to protest on 
their behalf. For they are all in the same boat. Necessity 
knows no law but that of justice and it is recognised as a prin- 
ciple that if all the industries of a class are equally liable to a 
tax, the demands of justice are satisfied. If it be objected 
that in the case under consideration the industries in question 
are all owned by English-speaking foreigners who regard it as 
an unfriendly act, Mexicans might fairly retort that the pos- 
session of one lucrative monopoly does not entitle the holder 
to claim another. Besides, natives and foreigners are alike 
subjected to the new tax. 

There are, however, other ways of looking at the matter. 
Every country is entitled and every government morally 
obliged in the interests of its citizens to adopt protective meas- 
ures in the form of export dues on those natural resources 
which, once exhausted, can never be replenished. And no 
foreign State, however painfully its nationals may be hit 
thereby, can fairly oppose the levy of such a tribute. Unhap- 
pily for themselves many countries have failed to exercise 
that right and their respective governments have neglected to 
perform the corresponding duty. The consequences which en- 
sued from this lack of provision are writ large to-day in the 
decay of industry and commerce, the plague of chronic un- 
employment, the unrest — in some lands the revolt — of labour 
and general discontent. The twenty-eight millions of workers 
in England who during part of the year 1921 were dependent 
for their living on doles meted out by the State were currently 
supposed to be strike-victims. But one would not be far 
wrong if one sought for the origin of their pauperism in the 
improvidence of their rulers who for generations allowed coal, 



TAXATION OR CONFISCATION? 115 

iron ore and other national resources to be sold for a song and 
made no provision for the lean years which they ought to have 
known were coming. 

To-day statesmen vainly deplore the shortsightedness of 
their predecessors who permitted the most precious produce 
with which Nature had endowed their country to be brought 
to market and disposed of, so to say, for a mess of pottage, to 
the foreigner who built fleets, railways and established lucra- 
tive industries with the proceeds of the transaction. If an im- 
porting country is earning, say, a thousand per cent profit on 
raw materials, is it meet that the country which owns them 
should be forced to do with ten or twenty per cent ? In favour 
of such a contention there is nothing to be urged. 

• Examples are many and instructive. Coal is the tap-root of 
Great Britain's economic and political standing among the na- 
tions of the world. Had it been suddenly deprived of that re- 
source, the Empire would have fallen to pieces and the British 
Isles would have shrunk to the dimensions and the status of 
Spain, And yet coal has for a century been squandered as 
though the quantities available were inexhaustible. In the 
year 1816 only 238,000 tons of that mineral, including culm 
and bunker coal, were sent out of the country,^ but in 1840 
the quantity was already 1,606,000 tons; in 1854 it reached 
4>309jOOo; and in 1862 it was officially given as 8,302,000. A 
quarter of a century later the exports totalled 24,461,000 tons; 
eight years later it was 57,850,000 tons, and in the year 1913 
it had risen to 97,720,000 tons, to the joy of the mine-owners. 
The price it fetched was but a fraction of what must be paid 
for it to-day. In order to keep up the exportation, the cost 
of production was forced down so low that the miners had to 
dispense with a decent living wage as well as the sailors who 
manned the steamers to Singapore, the Piraeus and other 
foreign ports. Even the mine-owners contented themselves 
with less than reasonable profits and the country in general 
with fewer benefits. The workers were ill-paid, badly-housed 
and chronically embittered against the upper class. 

1 These figures are taken from Commerce and Industry, Statistical 
Tables. 



116 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

But the Scandinavian countries, Greece, Russia and other 
States were enabled to build merchant fleets and establish a 
powerful carrying trade at England's expense. Moreover, 
she picked the very best product of her coal measures for the 
home and foreign markets, leaving the inferior coal to be mined 
later on at an enormous cost. To-day the best quality coal 
is said to be well nigh exhausted. 

A similar policy of wastefulness were pursued in the case 
of iron ore. From the year 1819, when Great Britain exported 
73,000 tons of iron and steel to certain foreign countries, the 
quantities sold to foreign consumers went on increasing, at 
first very gradually and then with amazing rapidity. Thus 
in the year 1845 the total sent out of the United Kingdom 
was 352,000 tons; in the year 1853 it reached 1,261,000 tons; 
in 1872 it had grown to 3,383,000 tons, and in 1907 the official 
figures were 5,152,000 tons. 

The United States dealt and is still dealing in the same 
thriftless way with its material resources. A. noteworthy per- 
centage of its forests has already been cut down. Estimates 
made by the American Paper and Pulp Association, which ad- 
mittedly do not claim to be more than approximate, place ex- 
isting forests in the United States at between 500,000,000 and 
550,000,000 acres. This country originally had a forest area 
of about 850,000,000 acres. Of the present area, 200,000,000 
acres are believed to be merchantable timber, 250,000,000 
acres partially burned and cut over land on which there is 
sufficient natural production to insure a fair growth. At the 
present' rate of consumption it is estimated, the stand of 
matured timber in the United States will be exhausted within 
fifty years unless a drastic re-afforestation policy is adopted 
and enforced. 

It was those forests and the trades and industries to which 
they gave rise that enabled railways, steamships and flourish- 
ing marts to be constructed. The city of Seattle, for instance, 
is a product of splendid forests which are now fast vanishing 
and of mines which are approaching the point of exhaustion, 
and when these will have ceased to repay the cost of exploita- 
tion and nothing remains but agricultural produce, the effects 



TAXATION OR CONFISCATION? 117 

on the city will be painful and far-reaching. The timber sold 
to the foreigner did not, it is alleged, fetch more than a mere 
fraction of its intrinsic value, the remaining three-quarters 
going to enrich countries overseas. 

Similar remarks are applicable to the low prices which 
ruled for iron, copper and oil. And according to the most 
competent geologists, half of the oil in the United States is 
already exhausted. Germany bought large quantities of 
American oil at prices which are now considered to have been 
inadequate. Her industrial corporations refined it at large 
profits and manufactured various other articles out of the by- 
products. For a considerable period the price was one dollar 
for a barrel, while the Germans sold the gasoline, vaseline, 
saccharine, parafifine, perfumes and about two hundred other 
by-products at prices which brought the profits up to twenty 
dollars a barrel. 

A cognate if less apt illustration is afforded by the United 
States which with a practical monopoly of cotton disposed of 
the crops during several decades at the rate of from five to 
eight cents a pound, a price rendered possible only because of 
cheap labour in the South. This money did not allow the 
labourers a sufficient living wage, the owners a fair return, 
nor the railway companies adequate pay for carrying it to 
market. What could and should have been done was to levy 
an export duty on the produce, raise the wages of the agricul- 
tural labourer and oblige the foreigner to whom an exorbitant 
share of the value was accruing to contribute to the well-being 
of the country and the people who were creating it. 

In those improvident ways the English-speaking races went 
on compelling or allowing their own people to dissipate its 
wealth to enrich strangers overseas. 

Now is it unreasonable in itself or tantamount to an un- 
friendly act towards foreigners for the President of Mexico, 
who has the interests of his country at heart, to profit by the 
mistakes of the British and the Yankees? He does not think 
so, nor does he believe that the great English-speaking nations 
entertain any such opinion. Mexico's oil, mines and forests 
constitute her greatest economic assets and her heaviest politi- 



118 MEXICO ON THE VERGE ■ 

cal curse, and to allow these resources to be carried out of the 
country in the improvident way in which England and the 
United States permitted their principal resources to be ex- 
ported would be a crime. And General Obregon refuses to 
commit it. 

The sharp polemic now going on between the press of Mex- 
ico and that of the United States on this question of taxation 
is confused by the importation into it of political issues. The 
essence of the matter would seem to be whether or not the 
increased tax is confiscatory. If the reply is in the negative, 
there is no objection derived from international law which 
will hold against it. And that is the stand taken by the Mexi- 
can Government. Of course if it could be shown conclusively 
not merely that production will sensibly fall off in consequence 
but that the oil industry as a whole will become unprofitable, 
there should and would be no hesitation on the part of the 
Mexican Administration to temper the wind to the shorn 
siheep. For no Government, and least of all one that needed 
money as badly as does that of Mexico, would be fatuous 
enough to commit economic suicide by cutting off the main 
source of its existence. Confiscation or a tax equivalent to this 
would spell bankruptcy and ruin to the Mexican State, for 
taxation to the point of confiscation carries its own remedy. 

Mexicans urge that to-day oil is being extracted and ex- 
ported at a rate calculated to alarm the nation's trustees. It 
is a repetition of what England did with her coal and iron ore. 
Immense fortunes have been and are being made and taken 
away by foreigners, few abiding traces of which are left in 
the land. So considerable are the quantities of Mexican oil 
at present imported into the United States that voices have 
been uplifted in the latter country calling for an import duty 
on it. The Fordney tariff is a conclusive proof that the Mex- 
ican oil industry can support a heavier impost than it has yet 
borne and it is meet that the Mexican States should get the 
benefit of it. ^^^^y should a foreign government as well as 
foreign corporations draw enormous gains from a product 
which yields inadequate profits to the country in which it is 
found? If oil can bear an increase of taxation — and this is 



TAXATION OR CONFISCATION? 119 

admitted by all — why should the Government which contrib- 
utes nothing to its production be the beneficiary? Again, it 
cannot be asserted that there is any international law which 
forbids a government to regulate in the interests of the com- 
munity the exploitation of natural produce or even manufac- 
tured commodities. Every State is at liberty to put in force 
such measures for the purpose as it deems called for. Ex- 
amples of the exercise of this right during and since the war 
are numerous, and for the protection of a source of wealth 
which can never be replenished, the right is unassailable and 
the duty to exercise it imperious. 

From the fiscal point of view also the arguments that favour 
the Mexican position are forcible. There is something pecu- 
liarly repellent in the contention that a nation should go to 
rack and ruin for lack of the funds requisite to carry on the 
Government of the country when that country is teeming with 
wealth. And Mexico thinks she can discern a Mephistophelian 
touch in the policy forged by a combination of powerful and 
unfriendly interests which presses her to pay her debts, yet 
closes to her all avenues of credit throughout the globe, and 
by way of crowning the work disputes her right to raise part 
of the money by taking her full share of the resources which 
she herself possesses at home, A more stringent boycott, a 
more deadly grip, it would be difficult to imagine. 



CHAPTER XII 

Casting Out Demons By Beelzebub and Saving Mexico 
IN Spite of Herself 

All the vexatious acts of which foreigners could reasonably 
complain and the quibbles by which it was sought to justify 
them belong to the past. Even under Madero, Huerta and 
Carranza the oil companies continued to earn enormous profits. 
Since General Obregon took over the reins of power the last 
of the blameworthy practices and dubious doctrines which 
marked the Carranza regime have ceased to bear sway. A 
wholly new spirit is incarnate in the present Administration 
and no country, party or individual sincerely desirous of see- 
ing friendly relations established between Mexico and her 
neighbours would deliberately ignore its presence or underes- 
timate its significance. It consigns to history those forcible 
arguments and impassioned appeals by which the self-consti- 
tuted champions of American rights sought to fulfil their mis- 
sion and justify their propaganda. Their legitimate claims 
are now recognised by a man whose words are acts and it 
only remains to settle the details. Further agitation and prop- 
aganda seems superfluous. It would be fatuous to knock at 
an open door. And yet the knocking is louder now than ever 
before. 

Some Americans — and they are among the most influential 
— have made up their minds that Mexico is incapable of inde- 
pendent national life and growth, complain of the slowness of 
Obregon's advance on the path of reform and clamour or in- 
trigue for American tutelage. To this there is a simple an- 
swer. In all countries the politician who acquires power is 
allowed a reasonable time to exercise it beneficially by unfold- 
ing and applying his reform schemes, and it would be alike 
unfair and dangerous to make an exception for the dislocated 
Mexican State whose President, although never a dabbler in 

120 



SAVING MEXICO 121 

politics, is gradually proving himself to be a first-class states- 
man and organiser. It would be still more unfair and dan- 
gerous to seek to block General Obregon's way by raising in- 
ternational obstacles to domestic reform. For it should be 
remembered — if indeed it has ever been forgotten — by those 
who expect immediate wonder-working measures on the part 
of Obregon, that in Mexico to-day no President can precipir- 
tate things without precipitating himself and his administra- 
tion, — a denouement which would embarrass even those who 
forced him to rush on to destruction. But although it is poor 
policy to jump into the fire in order to escape the smoke, some 
politicians have adopted it. 

Why, one may reasonably ask, if Mexico and the United 
States are agreed upon essentials — as they manifestly are — 
should there be a deadlock in their present relations and a 
grave danger in their future intercourse ? 

The answer to this query is given by those Mexicans who 
are familiar with the strivings of the little plutocratic State 
within the great democratic State. It is because the demands 
made upon Mexico have never yet been fully and openly pro- 
pounded. Some of them being esoteric are but vaguely hinted 
at and remain for the time being in petto. Hence the issues are 
being publicly dealt with in misleading statements while a 
movement is being fomented in secret which has quite dif- 
ferent objects in view, and the men who are' directing it are 
the very last who should put their influence and standing to 
such a sinister misuse. 

The world recognises Secretary Hughes' rectitude and plain 
dealing. Nobody imagines that a man of his character and 
standing would consciously lend himself to any group of men 
or to any pushing poHtician interested in modifying Mexico's 
international status. Hence no one can have been bold enough 
to propose to him the plan of Cubanisation cherished by the 
conclave in the shade. What they have, however, succeeded 
in proposing and having accepted is a condition antecedent to 
recognition which may be made to appear in the abstract 
harmless enough to an eminent lawyer who has no experience 
of international affairs, but which when applied in the concrete 



122 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

to international and national politics turns out to be a wedge 
capable of splitting and shattering the Mexican State. Mr. 
Hughes' demands for protection and compensation are legally 
just ; and his desire to see a treaty of commerce and amity 
signed is comprehensible; but insistence on the latter require- 
ment as a condition antecedent to recognition changes their 
character fundamentally. Fresh earth is good in itself; crys- 
talline water is also good, but mix them together and you 
have nothing but mud. 

In the United States the machinery of Government may 
from one point of view be likened to the workings of the 
human intellect. Countless impressions are made by external 
objects on the senses every day and hour, but of these only a 
limited number reach consciousness and are passed on to the 
intelligence. In like manner innumerable demands are laid 
by influential individuals and corporations before the State 
Department and are fortified by arguments, complaints, ac- 
cusations and statistics, but only a ver}' small percentage of 
them at a time are stamped with the hall-mark of govern- 
mental approval and inserted in the official programme. The 
others may or may not be adopted later on. In the case of 
Mexico Mr. Hughes has set aside all Mr. Fall's recommenda- 
tions but one. But that one has produced the present dead- 
lock and may engender further-reaching and more sinister con- 
sequences. 

No branch of foreign intelligence is so well equipped with 
vigilance committees, volunteer watchmen and amateur 
prompters as that which has Mexico for its object. The 
wealthy corporations and associations have also a political pro- 
gramme for its good ordering and a series of records to prove 
their case. They likewise possess their agents, their "eyes" 
and "ears" and their secret propagandists whose zeal at times 
defeats their aims. It is no exaggeration to affirm that the 
Mexican Republic is honeycombed with spies after the manner 
of Russia under Tsar Alexander III. They are in the Post 
Office, the Telegraph Office, the University, the lodges of Free- 
masons and in the State Departments. Those foreign cor- 
porations are primed therefore with information — oftentimes 



SAVING MEXICO 123 

invented — about politics, the army, economics, the Church, 
every group of malcontents and about the disaffected gen- 
erals who are ready to rise against the Government. It is no 
wonder that those corporations are the first and best informed 
respecting imminent revolts and coming rebellions. 

All these streams of information, opinion and sentiment 
flow into a central reservoir which is at the disposal of the most 
powerful unofficial body in the world to-day, a body whose in- 
fluence makes itself felt continuously and almost irresistibly, 
in the financial, journalistic, economic and political spheres of 
the United States. One of these Associations represents all 
the manifold interests of American citizens in the Southern 
Republic and is rightly or wrongly believed to be able at will 
to adopt or have adopted measures of such stringency as would 
bring the population of that Republic to financial and economic 
downfall. It can likewise to a marked degree, it is affirmed, 
enlist public support in the United States on the side of in- 
trinsically unpopular measures. Nowhere is such a task 
easier than in a young democracy. 

"We do not know,'* writes a distinguished American pub- 
licist, "what public opinion really is, or who really supports it. 
It is so unformed and disorganised, so lacking in real leader- 
ship, so unsupported by disciplined thought, that almost any 
•well conducted propaganda can seise it and temporarily con- 
trol it to almost any end. The reason is again that we are not 
in the habit of thinking in terms of public life. We are think- 
ing in terms of individual opportunity."^ 

One of the favourite expedients adopted towards Mexican 
public men by the various groups of capitalists promised heavy 
returns, provided that their discrimination, Intuition and tact 
should prove equal to its execution. It was this : to seek out 
among prominent politicians and revolutionists in that Re- 
public the Individual or Individuals who seemed most Hkely 
to attain to the presidency in the near future, to cultivate their 
friendship with assiduity and, if possible, to obtain from them 
binding promises respecting their future dealings with them. 

1 "After Thirty Years," by Fred. J. E. Woodbridge in the Atlantic 
Monthly, June, 1921. The italics are mine. 



124 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

In this way there were a number of pet candidates in this or 
that camp whose capacities and patriotism they extolled and 
blazoned abroad and whose friendly co-operation they endeav- 
oured to secure in advance. Victoriano Huerta was one, Fran- 
cisco Villa was another, Pablo Gonzalez a third and Robles 
Dominguez a fourth. Some of the presidents in petto actually 
pledged their word to pursue a certain line of action towards 
American investors, to give them preference over the British 
and other foreigners in matters of concessions, to abolish the 
Constitution of 191 7 and to realise various other postulates 
once they had reached the goal of their ambitions. Commit- 
ments were also entered into respecting the treatment of the 
religious question for the benefit of those bodies, American 
and Mexican, who were especially concerned with this matter. 
Those stipulations were no secret. I heard them discussed 
on several occasions. Of these secret conclaves and their cove- 
nants the American people knew nothing, neither of course did 
the Federal Government. 

Those Presidents in petto included civilians and military 
leaders, and the circumstance that a man's escutcheon was not 
wholly free from blots was not regarded as a disqualification. 
According to an interesting document, a facsimile of which 
I possess, one of these substitutes for Carranza actually at- 
tempted to enlist the services of a stranger representing a 
foreign Power and to secure his assistance for the purpose 
of helping him to the Presidential chair. And he promised 
him a round sum in case of success. A foreign diplomatist 
when the first elections were at hand made bold to sway the 
electors by holding out to them the pers-pective of immediate 
recognition by his Government if one of these favourites were 
chosen for the vacant post. Another candidate laid himself 
open to a criminal charge which if proven — and the incrim- 
inating evidence, of which I also possess a facsimile, is in his 
own handwriting — would put him out of court for all time. 
But in the eyes of the schemers these taints did not disqualify 
the chosen one. If he stood for property rights all his sins 
were forgiven him. 

The various candidates were supplied with funds by the 



SAVING MEXICO 125 

groups whose proteges they were, and besides promises for the 
future they sometimes conferred favours without further de- 
lay. One of the companies purchased lands for exploitation 
but was unable to obtain the title deeds. It appealed to its own 
candidate for the Presidency, a well known Mexican at pres- 
ent residing abroad, and asked him to interpose his authority 
or use his influence on its behalf. He made answer : "When 
I am President, all will be well with you. My future attitude 
is known to you. In seven or eight months from now your 
title deeds will be in order and in your possession." But the 
company's spokesman would not take this answer. He said : 
"While grateful for your assurances and promises we are now 
in need of immediate help and you and I know that it is within 
your power to give it. Unless we receive the title deeds at 
once we shall be plunged into a sea of troubles. Help us as 
we are helping you." And after some further parley the 
protege started off for the National Palace and obtained what 
the Company desired. 

Those are but a few of many incidents which reveal how 
far undue foreign ascendency over Mexican politics can go 
and how incompatible such a condition of affairs is with the 
normal relations which ought to prevail between the two Re- 
publics, and which the great people of the United States is led 
to believe do actually prevail. There is no doubt that if it 
realised the extent to which these schemes go to concentrate 
power in the adjoining Republic in the hands of a few multi- 
millionaires and ambitious politicians and to demoralise the 
prominent public men of that Republic, it would make short 
work of the system. Americanism, in its highest form, is sen- 
sitive, scrupulous, self-respecting, and it cannot but lose its 
worthiness, self-respect and its power for good in an environ- 
ment of mean purpose and corrupting tactics. The circum- 
stance that the Mexicans chosen for these degrading experi- 
ments were sometimes the flotsam and jetsam of a society in 
the melting pot provides neither a justification nor an excuse 
for those who in the name and under the aegis of a glorious 
and progressive people use them as tools for a purpose that 
cannot be openly avowed. 



126 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

One of the most popular Mexican leaders who was inac- 
cessible to such influences and on whose 'scutcheon there was 
no blot was General Obregon. No overtures of the character 
described were ever made to him. And yet the legend was 
studiously s<pread that he was like the others, venal, ambitious 
and unscrupulous, although the contrary was known to be true. 



CHAPTER XIII 
Moral Guardianship 

The members of the oil and policy groups who believe with 
the Germans that the strongest defence is to take the offensive, 
being thus primed with detailed information about every Mex- 
ican event and episode of importance, past and present, about 
every leader and politician of distinction and about every com- 
ing man and his vulnerable points, — know the particular mo- 
tives to which each one is impressible. Hence they can play 
upon the right chords and could usually foretell a revolt or a 
revolution until July, 1921, when the upheaval planned in their 
own oil district under conditions which they are said to have 
foreknown was trampled out as soon as it began. They are 
also more fully conversant with every clause and every inter- 
pretation of the Constitutions of 1857 and 1917 and with the 
seamy side of the history of this period than most Mexican 
Ministers. They influence some of the principal journalistic 
sources of information and opinion. And they also boast 
that they have "enlisted" the sympathies and the services of 
some eminent Mexicans who are in voluntary exile. They in- 
vest considerable sums of money in propaganda. In a word, 
the Mexicans hold that if knowledge be power, this wealthy 
Junta is well nigh almighty, and if money be the open sesame 
to either, all its avenues and by-ways have been swept and 
garnished for their passage. 

Some of the avowed objects of the Association at the outset 
commanded the respect of every friend of justice and equity. 
They were desired by Europeans as ardently as by Americans, 
being described as adequate protection for the lives and prop- 
erties of outlanders in Mexico, and compensation for the finan- 
cial losses inflicted in the past. That such an influential and 
well-equipped body should be exceptionally successful in the 

prosecution of these aims was only to be anticipated. For it 

127 



128 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

pursued them steadfastly and ingeniously, unaffected by minor 
currents, and never once did it take an official step without 
having first assured itself of the support of the State Depart- 
ment in Washington. This precaution explains its formidable 
strength and went far to cause its avowed policy to be identi- 
fied with that of the permanent clement of every Government, 
Republican or Democratic. 

But long before the pristine programme of the Association 
had been realised, Mexicans were in a quiver lest it should be 
stretched over more ground. And ominous signs and tokens 
strengthened their apprehension. Among these was the de- 
fection of some of the unprejudiced financiers of Wall Street 
who disagreed with certain of the objects of the Association 
as unwarranted. The Mexicans feared interpenetration accel- 
erated by diplomacy, which is the latter day substitute for inva- 
sion and annexation. And this was unofficially confessed to 
by some private members. That was the policy of the late 
Russian statesman, Count Witte, in the Far East and it bade 
fair to bring forth the fruits which he anticipated, when it was 
thwarted by the disturbing action of the German Kaiser who 
preferred the old system of territorial annexation to the new. 
Interpenetration, as Witte understood it, consisted in first dis- 
claiming any design upon territory, next in obtaining a firm 
economic hold in the country by advancing loans and then 
putting forward various demands for protection for nationals 
and special legislation as practical corollaries. It is an adapta- 
tion of the Arab camel's way: he first puts his nose through 
the opening of the tent and then draws his liody, hump and 
all, after it. Thus the Eastern Chinese railway which was 
^^'^tte's first standing ground had to have Russian officials to 
administer it. These required a Russian semi-military body 
to protect them against angry natives. The two sets of offi- 
cials had to have Russian banks and schools. To avoid friction 
the Russians were allowed to select the Chinese local authori- 
ties and lastly to suggest the .special legislation which best 
suited Russian requirements. But there was no intervention, 
no territorial aggression, no trace of force. The entire arrange- 
ment was but the building up of a "durable friendship" and 



MORAL GUARDIANSHIP 129 

by way of sealing the compact Russia generously undertook 
to defend China against her enemies with troops and money 
and to give sound advice to her friend in all cases of diplo- 
matic difficulty with other Powers and to occupy her ports in 
case of threatened foreign aggression. The present writer 
was with Count Witte when this treaty of commerce and amity 
was concluded. 

Mexicans are apt to dread similar developments as a result 
of the unofficial action and far-ranging influence of the Asso- 
ciation and its political allies in the background. They feel 
instinctively that some of the political currents in the world 
are set in that direction to-day and that comprehensive aims, 
as friendly as were those of Tsarist Russia in China, may be 
— are in fact — believed by misinformed statesmen to fit the 
Mexican situation exactly. They have the examples of Haiti, 
and Santo Domingo before their eyes and they remember the 
French proverb qui a hu boira. They know that the struggle 
for the necessaries of economic life among the leading races of 
the globe will be characterised by a degree of ruthlessness 
hitherto unexampled. They are aware how attractive a prize 
is Mexico which has already absorbed forty per cent of all 
American capital invested abroad and will attract a great deal 
more as soon as outstanding political scores are wiped off the 
slate. Mexican oil has been publicly declared essential to the 
United States. That implies a fixed official attitude on the 
part of the United States Administration and may well entail 
in the long run a corresponding official adoption of further 
clauses of the programme of the Oil and Policy group. In sil- 
ver production Mexico is ahead of all the world. Nearly every 
mineral worth exploiting is found in the Republic and can be 
worked commercially. It is able to vie successfully with Cuba 
in sugar and with Egypt in cotton production and representa- 
tives of every American branch of commerce and industry are 
already flocking thither to provide for their future wants and 
await the moving of the waters. 

Thus a large part of the trade, commerce and industry of 
the Republic has passed Into the experienced hands of the 
greatest business people on the globe who are eager for the rest 



}W MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

and are being efficaciously seconded by their public trustees. 
And these workers or their spokesmen feel warranted in de- 
manding adequate facilities for their activity in the shape of 
domestic legislation and foreign policy, this being a correlate 
of that. Such legislation, it is urged, must come up to the 
standard of those who are creating public opinion in the States 
with a view to the establishment of close permanent relations 
Ix'twecn the two countries. Prominent among them is the dis- 
tinguished -American statesman — now a member of the Cabinet 
— whose programme is believed to include an arrangement 
with Mexico of the same order as that which the Piatt Amend- 
ment established with Cuba. Another of the unofficial de- 
mands on Mexico formulates a series of reforms to be carried 
through on Church matters, as, for instance, the abolition of 
all the restrictions enacted against the Roman Catholic clergy, 
despite the circumstance that however stringent or inexpedient 
these statutes may be they are virtually identical with those 
in force in the democratic French Republic and cannot be 
made the subject of complaint by any foreign Power. In a 
word, Mexico's Constitution is an eye-sore to these self-con- 
stituted reformers and they will not be satisfied until it is su- 
perseded by a charter which is in their opinion more conducive 
to the spiritual, social and political welfare of both Republics. 
And that is the Constitution of 1857. Only when this has 
Ixien effected will the intimate union planned by these foreign 
frienrls of Mexico be possible l)etween the two countries. 
They are aware that it would l)e as unseemly to demand the 
abrogation of the Constitution of 191 7 as it would have been 
for the mild pacific Quaker to kill the dog that bit him. so they 
merely call for a series of measures which will oblige the Mex- 
ican Government to cancel it and will render that Government 
a puppet of the United States. 

Men's souls, a Russian proverb says, are dusky virgin for- 
ests, wherein motives are lost to sight. And in default of 
knowledge it is fair that the detached outsider should give 
those would-lie foreign saviours of ^lexico full credit for the 
friendship which they profess for it. At the same time, how- 
ever, one cannot affect surprise if the ^fexicans appreciate it 



MORAL GUARDIANSHIP 131 

in the words of the saying: "The vulture kisses the chicken 
until there is not a feather left." Has he not done this in 
Haiti? 

Whatever one may think of the strivings of the Associa- 
tion and of the inaccessibility of Mexicans to its reasoning, one 
must admit that no adequate opinion of the situation can be 
formed without a clear understanding of the standpoint of 
each. Thus at any moment one of those unforeseen events of 
international import in which Mexican history abounds may 
occur to belie the soundest forecast. The utmost one can do 
therefore is to make one's deductions from the data actually 
available and allow a broad margin for the freaks of circum- 
stance. 

The ostensible issues, then, between Mexico and the United 
States are the repeal of- all the decrees which demonstrably en- 
croached upon private rights of property, reparation for the 
past and assurances for the future. Legally and technically 
the United States Government is well within its rights in pre- 
ferring these claims. And the Obregon Administration has 
recognised their justice in word and is satisfying them in deed. 
But behind these legitimate demands lurks the steadfast con- 
viction of the capitalist interests that they cannot be satisfac- 
torily complied with under present conditions nor so long as 
the Constitution of 191 7 is allowed to stand, and that in case 
this were feasible it would be undesirable, because the result- 
ing situation must be necessarily transitory and incongruous. 
One practical inference from this thesis is as good as drawn 
already ; neither a legislative act by the Mexican Congress nor 
a decision of the Supreme Court will be accepted by the United 
States Government as a satisfactory solution because a judicial 
pronouncement and a legislative enactment are both liable to 
reversal each by the respective institution whence it emanated. 
What is postulated then is a solemn commitment of a com- 
prehensive character which shall bind the Republic of Mexico, 
authorise the United States Government to keep it to its word 
and thus bring about a set of conditions propitious to pacific 
labour in harmonious fellowship, — conditions, in a word, such 
as obtain in prosperous Cuba. As for the binding force of 



132 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

any compact however solemn on the United States, Mexicans 
entertain their own settled opinions. And they base these on 
the recent traj^ic history of Haiti. 

This consummation, it is discerned, cannot be effected at 
once. Mexico abhors it. An attempt to achieve it whether 
from within or without would provoke biiter resentment and 
resolute resistance. In fact it would plunge the country into 
civil war once more. It needs a peculiar kind of shameless 
daring in the Mexican worker which is never found in combi- 
nation with any civic virtue and it can be entrusted only to 
those base products of all social upheavals who are willing to 
serve as the instruments of any sinister influence on condi- 
tions advantageous to themselves. And then it goes by an un- 
pleasant name. If a man with such proclivities were in power 
in Mexico to-day not only wcjuld the ostensible issues be speed- 
ily revealed but likewise all the other unavowed desiderata 
would be disclosed by the docile leader congruously with the 
promptings of the friendly foreign Mentor. Is there such a 
tool ? Rumor answers : Yes, and history awaits the promised 
proofs. 

To advocate the moral guardianship of the United States, 
is to harp on a string which has no music for the Mexican 
ear. In all the other Latin-.\merican Republics too the tide 
of national and racial feeling flows steadily against it. Could 
they think or feel otherwise, history's records being what they 
are? They all regard the proposed treaty as the insertion of 
the thin end of a wedge destined gradually to break up their 
sovereignty. They apprehend that what is aimed at is the es- 
tablishment of a permanent agency through which the breezes 
of salutary inspiration may blow steadily from Washington 
first to Mexico and then to all the Southern Republics. The 
past history of Mexico and the correct reading of the current 
history of Haiti and other little States they take as warnings 
and as omens. They regard the civilisation of the United 
States when confined to its own home with respect mingled 
with awe. but they resent having it superimposed on their own. 
They unconsciously echo the thought o'f that patriotic Arieri- 
can publicist. W. G. Sumner, who wrote: "There is not a 



MORAL GUARDIANSHIP 133 

civilised nation which does not talk about its civilising mis- 
sion just as grandly as we do. The English, who really have 
more to boast of in this respect than anybody else, talk least 
about it, but the Pharisaism with which they correct and in- 
struct other people has made them hated all over the globe. 
. . . For each nation laughs at all the others when it observes 
these manifestations of national vanity. You may rely upon 
it that they are all ridiculous by virtue of these pretensions, in- 
cluding ourselves. The point is that each of them repudiates 
the standards of the others, and the outlying nations which 
are to be civilised hate all the standards of civilised men. We 
assume that what we like and practise and what we think bet- 
ter must come as a welcome blessing to Spanish-Americans 
and Filipinos. This is grossly and obviously untrue. They 
hate our ways. They are hostile to our ideas. Our religion, 
language, institutions and manners offend them. They like 
their own ways, and if we appear amongst them as rulers, 
there will be social discord in all the great departments of 
social interest. . . . Now the great reason why all these en- 
terprises, which began by saying to somebody else, 'we know 
what is good for you better than you know yourself and we 
are going to make you do it,' are false and wrong, is that they 
violate liberty."^ There one has the entire subject in a nut- 
shell. One must reluctantly admit that liberty is among those 
rights of peoples and individuals which is most imperfectly 
understood in the United States. 

If it could be shown conclusively that the Mexican Consti- 
tution as a whole is what certain foreign corporations affirm 
that it is, — a nefarious charter which legalises confiscation, — 
there is no doubt that the President of the Mexican Republic 
would have refused to swear fidelity to it until and unless it 
was abrogated. Nay more, if it could now be demonstrated 
that any article of it conduces to a breach of international law, 
measures would be enforced to modify it. Already it has been 
amended in several details. Don Venustiano himself spon- 
sored various projects tending to better it. Even lately cer- 
tain projects have been drafted for the like purpose. But the 

1 War and Other Essays, by W. G. Sumner, pp. 303-305. 



134 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

ground taken by Mexicans who have scrutinised the oil com- 
panies' complaints is that the origin of their grievances lies 
not in the Constitution itself but in certain presidential de- 
crees which ran counter to its spirit and that they have since 
joined hands with the enemies of Mexico's sovereignty. 

Thus I'lie more active protectors of American rights start 
with begging the question and fabricating proofs. They as^ 
sume that the Constitution of 19 17 is a perennial source of 
evil, keeps Mexico in a continuous ferment of turmoil, mak- 
ing her a nuisance to her neighbours, and tliat until it is done 
away with that country's condition cannot change sufficiently 
for the better to warrant the moral and financial support of 
the United States, nor even to justify further forljearance. 
In plain terms, it must be abrogated if the Republic is to live. 
They forget that the past is not the present and ignore the 
new order of things. The United States, they further urge, 
can no longer tolerate the dangerous vagaries of a semi-savage 
neighlx)ur running amuck, killing their citizens, destroying 
American property, trampling on American rights, sending the 
poison of bolshevism into United States cities and rendering 
it increasingly difficult for law-abiding people in either country 
to discharge their duties, and perpetrating these enormities in 
the name of constitutional law, — as though such excesses took 
place in post-revolutionarv Mexico or indeed of late years at 
all. 

This, it is argued by those who are intrepid in propagandist 
logic, is one of those cases in which the maxim — from a theory 
it is fast becoming a maxim — of "Manifest Destiny" is fairly 
applicable. When the United States quarreled with Spain in 
Flcjrida and Louisiana — tht argument runs — it had right on 
its side, because Spain was clearly unfitted to govern her de- 
pendencies in accordance with the dictates of humanity and 
over and above all was unwilling to discharge her international 
commitments and functions. Arrogating to herself extensive 
rights she shirked the correlative duties and implicitly claimed 
to be a law unto herself. And as this was merely one of the 
aspects of the case presented by savage tribes which strive to 
hold their territory against civilised colonists, it was very prop- 



MORAL GUARDIANSHIP 135 

erly treated as such by the United States. Mexico is in a Hke 
pHght to-day, say the would-be reformers from the great 
Northern RepubHc, well knowing that the statement is utterly 
at variance with the truth. Her pacific population is cruelly 
oppressed by a gang of thieves and cut-throats whose squalid 
and immoral policy cries out to civilised mankind for repres- 
sive measures, Obregon may be the honest man he is repre- 
sented to be, but what is one sane individual among so many 
furious madmen ? A foil and nothing more. And the Consti- 
tution to which Carranza appealed for his confiscatory decrees 
may be relied upon by Obregon's successor for similar mon- 
strosities. It is certain then that Mexico's progressive and 
kindly disposed neighbour is invested with the natural right 
and bound by the moral obligation to shoulder the white man's 
burden and assume the minimum degree of indirect jurisdic- 
tion adequate to enable it to bestow on the population peace, 
order and guarantees so that commerce and industr}'- may be 
prosecuted there. 

And the first step to be taken towards bringing back the 
countr}^ to the "normalcy" of the Diaz regime must be the 
abrogation of the obnoxious Constitution. This was also one 
of the moves made by the United States officials in their benefi- 
cent labour for the establishment of "tolerable conditions" in 
Haiti. Colonel Littleton \\^aller, commanding the United 
States expeditionary forces in Haiti, wrote to the President 
of the Haitian Senate" demanding the general revision of the 
Constitution and the dissolution of the Senate, should this 
body decline to co-operate with the Constituent Chamber in 
this sense.^ 

The President of the Haitian Senate resented this well 
meant exercise of fraternal authority and replied: "The at- 
tempt to abolish the Senate is a flagrant violation of the Con- 
stitution and is consequently tantamount to a revolutionary 
act."* 



2 Paul Laraque. 

3 Extract from letter sent by Colonel Littleton Waller on 27th April, 
1916. 

* Extract from reply sent by Paul Laraque on 28th April, 1916. 



136 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

None the less, the Senate was summarily and unconstitution- 
ally dissolved, the lower house was illegally transformed into 
a constituent assembly and a dictatorship was established in 
lieu of the Constitutional Government. 



CHAPTER XIY 
Flaws in the Constitution of 1917 

The magnitude of the interests at stake and the serious 
nature of the outlook justify a brief review of the interna- 
tional perils with which Mexico is confronted and of the al- 
leged nexus between them and the present Constitution, 

This Constitution is by no means all evil. It possesses cer- 
tain redeeming traits which are well worth retaining. At the 
Congress of Oueretaro its authors introduced provisions into 
the new charter which were framed to deal with social condi- 
tions unknown in the year 1857 when the previous Constitu- 
tion was drawn up. These hastily drafted enactments protect 
women and children and rescue them from the status of serf- 
dom theretofore prevalent, devise a reasonable formula for 
regulating the question of remuneration, oblige employers to 
pay their workmen in legal currency, to refrain from whittling 
down wages by fines, to erect sanitary dwellings to be had for 
fair rents, to eliminate gambling dens and generally to treat 
the workers as human beings and free agents. And in this re- 
spect the Constitution of 1917 marked a distinct advance on 
that of 1857 and challenges the opposition of certain oil com- 
panies. 

But its f ramers did not stop here. They went to extremes, 
unduly favouring the workman at the expense of the em- 
ployer, compelling the latter in certain emergencies to continue 
to operate at a loss, giving the former an undetermined share 
in the profits and generally upsetting the equilibrium which 
should exist between capital, labour and intelligence and which 
Obregon is now bent on restoring. Thus, an amendment to 
the Constitution passed at a subsequent date^ lays it down 
that neither suspension of work by employers nor a strike by 
the workmen is lawful without the assent of the Executive, 

^In December, 1918. 

137 



138 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

and that if one or the other takes place without this assent, 
the Executive is warranted in taking over control of the busi- 
ness, if he deems it to be of public interest. 

These and kindred enactments, it is agreed, are calculated 
to deter capital from seeking investments in Mexico. They 
are further of a nature to spur the workmen to sinister efforts 
to overturn the entire social system. And these, it is added, 
are precisely the consequences which the Constitution has al- 
ready generated. Here is one of the many proofs adduced. 
At the Convention of the Labour Party in Pachuca the fol- 
lowing resolution was passed unanimously : "The Mexican 
Labour Party has ever stood by the side of the proletariat, aid- 
ing it to win its total emancipation. It holds that the prole- 
tariat is warranted, at the fitting moment, to seize and keep 
the lands, machinery and all the means of production and 
transportation, and likewise to control production and con- 
sumption by means of a system of social organisation which 
shall guarantee economic equality in every branch."" A com- 
prehensive programme drafted by grown-up children! 

An eminent Mexican publicist^ commenting on this remark- 
able profession of faith states that according to the Mexican 
press it counts upon advocates inside the Cabinet, who would 
fain see capitalism and private capital generally superseded 
by nationalisation and the overthrow of the Government of 
which they are members. He contends that the working men 
in Mexico are immune from real punishment if they break 
their contracts, however wantonly, whereas the employer can 
be held to his bargain or chastised condignly. "By terror the 
syndicates impose their will on the community and the Gov- 
ernment, whereas it is exceedingly difficult for a Government 
to exercise constraint over the syndicates by its terrorism. . , . 
The syndicates are therefore irresponsible, and in law con- 
tracts with irresponsible parties are unknown." And he ad- 
monished his countrymen that "the bulk of the capital which 
operates in Mexico is of foreign origin, and the Great Powers 
upon whom rests the duty of protecting it will not permit it 

*£/ Universal. 6th April, igai. 
*Don Francisco Bulncs. 



FLAWS IN CONSTITUTION OF 1917 139 

to be made the slave of Mexican Labour Syndicates. ... In 
a short span of time Mexicans will be forced to the conclu- 
sion that capital is a slave which will kill, unless indeed the pol- 
icy announced by General Obregon turns out to be as trenchant 
as the terror with which the community Is assailed by the pro- 
letariat"* 

This apprehension of bolshevism — for that is what it 
amounts to — is one of the favourite battle grounds of those 
American friends in Mexico who are anxious to import into 
that Republic the material prosperity and politico-social ar- 
rangements which prevail in Cuba. No war cry, it is rightly 
assumed, could be more effective than this. It appeals power- 
fully to financiers and men of business on whose good will 
the Mexican State must ultimately depend for the means of 
setting its house in order. Everything that scares or dis- 
courages foreign capitalists is a danger that transcends most 
others and must be removed, even at a heavy political sacri- 
fice. But whether the bolshevist symptoms alleged are trace- 
able to the Constitution of 19 17 or flow from that of 1857 
which confers sovereignty upon a number of sparsely popu- 
lated States, hampers the executive and frustrates the only 
efficient measure with which the malady can be combated — is 
a matter which will bear discussion and will be touched upon 
in another chapter as will also the allegation that bolshevism 
is rampant in the Republic. If it is true, as Sefior Bulnes 
contends, that only the Central Government can stem the bol- 
shevist tide, surely it follows that in order to produce the de- 
sired effect that Government must have a free hand through- 
out the entire Republic; and it is equally clear that the sov- 
ereignty of the separate States must be done away with, seeing 
that it ties the hands of the Executive and opens the door to 
inexperienced administrations like that of Yucatan. 

It is further asserted that scant encouragement is held out' 
by the Charter of 19 17 to foreign bankers. They are treated 
as covert enemies of the nation, — they on whose good will 
Mexico absolutely depends for the success of the work of re- 
construction. And without reconstruction from within offi- 

* El Universal, 6th April, 1921 : El Esclavo que Matara. 



140 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

cial recognition is but a meaningless form. Article 27 contains 
this provision : "Banks duly organised under the laws govern- 
ing institutions of credit may make mortgage loans on rural 
and urban property in accordance with the provisions of the 
said laws but they may not own nor administer more real 
property than that which is absolutely necessary for their direct 
purposes." 

Now what, one naturally asks, is the extent of the real 
property absolutely necessary within the meaning of that act? 
In order to ascertain this the words, expert opinion says, must 
be construed in the light of the foregoing clause which enacts 
that "Commercial Stock companies shall not acquire, hold or 
administer rural properties. Companies of this character 
which may be formed to develop any manufacturing, mining, 
petroleum or other industry, excepting only agricultural indus- 
tries, may acquire, hold or administer lands only in an area 
absolutely necessary for their establishments or adequate to 
serve the purposes indicated, which the Executive of the Union 
or of the respective State in each case shall determine." 

It is inferred from both those clauses that banks may not 
acquire, hold or administer rural properties, nor indeed any in- 
dustrial possessions which have no direct bearing upon banking 
purposes. And this, it is pointed out, is tantamount to a pro- 
hibition to lend money to agriculturists who will consequently 
be abandoned to the clutches of the usurer. For the usual 
guarantee of such a loan is the hacienda or estate of the bor- 
rower, and circumstances such as inability to pay interest may 
oblige the Bank to take possession of the property and admin- 
ister it. To dispossess it of the right to do this is to take 
away the only guarantee available and therefore to render 
such advances of money impossible. The final outcome, it is 
contended, is that these clauses deal a stunning blow to foreign 
banks and also to Mexican landlords."^ 

A country, it is affirmed, which upholds legislation of this 
suicidal character is on the high road to economic ruin. Un- 
suited to any contemporary State it is absolutely calamitous 
to Mexico whose policy must be directed to encourage foreign 

^ Cf. Excelsior, 8th April, 1921. 



FLAWS IN CONSTITUTION OF 1917 141 

capital to come into the country, and the Constitution that 
contains it should be abolished. 

On the other hand, Mexicans of a logical turn of mind, 
^vhile ready to amend those loosely worded clauses, would con- 
fine the change to them. An article, after all, is but a frac- 
tion of the Constitution, and Mexicans feel, as do the English, 
that in legislation transformation is better than creation out 
of nothing and that to go back to a Constitution framed sixty- 
four years ago when most of the crucial problems of to-day 
were not yet mooted would be retrogression worthy only of 
reactionaries. Hitherto several amendments have been passed 
>vhich were rendered pressing by new requirements or old 
ferrors and this process is obviously preferable to the forging 
bf such a brand-new Constitution as foreign politico-commer- 
cial interests advocate. 

One of the densest banks of storm clouds which hang over 
Mexico to-day is alleged to be formed by various aspects of 
the agrarian movement now going forward in the Republic 
and by the many abuses to which it has given rise. And yet 
it is doubtful whether an agrarian problem can be said to form 
part of the actualities of contemporary Mexican politics. The 
amount of land In the Republic still awaiting cultivation is 
enormous. I have myself visited a great part of the country 
and I write with first-hand knowledge. The soil in many dis- 
tricts is uncommonly fertile, in others it is potentially so. 
Every kind of fruit can be produced in abundance and per- 
fection on the coast and the tableland. The most palatable 
strawberries, mangoes, oranges, bananas, pineapples are 
awaiting transport facilities to enable them to vie with those 
of the fruit-bearing countries which dominate the world's 
markets to-day. Cotton, sugar fibre and rubber lands are 
extensive and relatively cheap. The northern States bid fair 
to become the greatest ranching country on the American 
Continent. In a word, there Is soil enough to satisfy the 
acutest land-hunger that the people is likely to feel for a long 
sequence of years to come. 

What the country is deficient In is a class of hardy enter- 
prising tillers equipped with technical training, capital and 



142 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

credit wherewith to purchase and use the requisite implements 
of modern agricuUural industry. The writer of these pages 
who travelled over the whole Republic was profoundly struck 
with the backwardness, poverty and quietism of the people, 
their primitive agricultural expedients and their slow and 
faint response to outward stimuli. Wooden ploughs, harrows 
that resemble broken rakes, water carried to the fields by 
human beings and harvests that barely keep body and soul to- 
gether are among the phenomena that attract attention. Be- 
yond the attainment of the most meagre results the peasant 
seldc«n feels impelled to advance. "In these parts we live in 
poverty," said the spokesman of a delegation in the State of 
Chiapas to General Obregon in my presence, "but we live con- 
tent and we shall die content if you guarantee us peace. That 
is all we ask." Exactly. They are contented with too little. 
Soul-eating rust makes many of them fail at the critical stages 
of many an undertaking, that is to say, at the outset and the 
end. Initiative and constancy are the qualities of which they 
stand most in need. 

That people of this type are eager to get land to till and are 
willing and able to till it is a statement that requires an effort 
of the imagination to accept. Yet this assumption has been 
made the starting point for a powerful movement in favour 
of parcelling out the great estates among the "land-hungry," 
of establishing peasant proprietorship on a vast scale and of 
raising the material life-standard of the native population. 
Careful Mexican writers^ have been at great pains to show the 
fallacy of this assumption and the untrustworthy character of 
the data underlying it and there is little doubt that it is being 
used very largely as a lever to embarrass the Government. 
Still President Obregon could not but take cognisance of the 
current, however artificial its origin might be, and devise a 
formula for the bestowal of land upon those who could prove 
that they were really willing and able to cultivate it. Their 
right to it is beyond question. The ideas which he put for- 
ward in the Chamber^ reveal a thorough grasp of the subject 

° Don Frnncisco Bulncs is the most eminent among them. 
^ In November, 1920. 



FLAWS IN CONSTITUTION OF 1917 143 

and a masterly method of dealing with it, but owing to the 
sovereignty of the States of the Union his intentions have been 
temporarily thwarted from time to time. Consequently this 
impotence to deal with questions which are national and in- 
ternational in their bearings — and the land problem partakes 
of both characters — is an argument not against the Constitu- 
tion of 19 1 7 but against the federal system of State structure. 
It has been demonstrated by statistics, which have been con- 
firmed by a number of concrete cases recently published, that 
the Indians, while eager enough to get possession of lands be- 
longing to others, have seldom the means or the will to culti- 
vate them and make haste to sell them to the highest bidders. 
In some instances they refused point blank to take them over 
at all, in others they at once disposed of them to the first pur- 
chasers they could find. What they particularly covet are 
flourishing estates, but only with a view "to impoverish them, 
by subsisting on their spontaneous produce. If on the Indian's 
lot there happens to be nopal plantations he lives on the fruits ; 
if woodland, he hews the trees until there are none left; if 
game be there, he hunts until he has caught or driven every 
animal away; if there be fish in the water, he fries them in 
his pan. This and two or three chunks of lard satisfy him and 
he asks for nothing better. We supplied a striking instance 
of this last Saturday, in the narrative of how that most flour- 
ishing estate, La Purisima, was plundered and destroyed with 
ruthless thoroughness. Converted into common lands, the In- 
dian first devastated it and then transformed it into a marsh 
for duck-shooting. To-day that whilom source of wealth is 
become a desolate, pestilent, barren swamp, in which nothing 
is cultivated and where the very people who clamoured for it 
are perishing."^ 

Since the agrarian agitation began to be utilised as an engine 
of political warfare, some prominent Mexican publicists solici- 
tous for the economic well-being of their country have been 
bringing to the cognisance of the general public the master 
facts that bear upon agriculture and upon the introduction of 
a system of peasant proprietorship after the French model. 
8 Excelsior, sth April, 1921. 



144 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

And these data, which tally with what is known of the tempera- 
ment of the population and seem decisive, point to the absence 
of any widespread demand for land or indeed of any serious 
demand whatever for the parcelling out of large estates. This. 
it may be parenthetically remarked is a matter of genuine re- 
gret. Were there real eagerness among the natives to possess 
and till the soil as it should be tilled, ]\Iexico's future would 
look brighter beyond compare. But as things now are, it 
seems as though the soil were doomed to pass wholly into the 
hands of foreign capitalists who are already the masters of 
so many other sources of the country's wealth. In a word, 
the process which is now going forward has been described as 
the Americanisation of Mexico, using the word American as 
synonymous with Yankee. 

General Obregon grasps the situation, eschews extremes, and 
is playing the only trump card in his hand. He will not 
brook the survival of these latifundia, which besides being ex- 
cessively large are partly uncultivated or cultivated only by 
antiquated methods. These he will have cut up in every case 
in which the public interest demands it. Other large estates 
properly stocked and tilled he will leave intact. The Indians 
shall have all the land they can cultivate, but should they be 
unwilling or unable to till those lots, the President will en- 
courage the best qualified husbandmen he can find in the old 
world to immigrate to Mexico, settle down as agriculturists 
and give a stimulating example to the natives. In time they 
will become prosperous Mexican citizens and in the meanwhile 
they will have shown practically what can be got out of the 
land by proper treatment and have thereby awakened in their 
neighbours a spirit of fruitful emulation. 

This is the conception of a patriot who is a statesman. And 
the systematic opfK)sition which it has encountered is among 
the difficulties that block his way. 

Some European observers who have an axe of their own 
to grind have recently recorded the results of their investiga- 
tions, and these shed an interesting light on the reality as dis- 
tinguished from the idyllic picture painted by day-dreamers 
and held up to the world by professional agitators. One of 



FLAWS IN CONSTITUTION OF 1917 145 

the most methodical and level-headed foreign economists® who 
gathered, sifted and published a number of illuminating data 
respecting the agrarian experiments already tried, is worth 
hearkening to. He writes : "In the district of Temax, Yuca- 
tan, the communal lands of Temax, Tzoncahuich, Tzitzantum, 
the town of Tzilan and the port of the same name were split 
up during the past ten years into normal farms of about four 
hectares/'' The eight hundred families which received their 
lots, with the exception of ten at the most, have already sold 
their farms. In the municipal territory of Causahcab, situated 
in the same district, a landlord got possession of the communal 
lands of the natives and set to work to grow hennequin" there. 
The Government took possession of the lands and gave them 
back to the Indians without any expense to the latter. Down 
to August, 1907, when I visited that district, I found that out 
of the 300 families thus benefited only forty had kept their 
possessions. The other 260 had sold theirs at once to the 
landlord." 

In Tabasco the result was similar. There the lands of 
twenty-one townships were also parcelled in the same way, 
but "out of the recipients of these allotments who numbered 
some 4,500 no less than 75 per cent disposed of them to third 
persons. 

*Tn Pocyaxuma, a district of Campeche, the common land 
was partitioned among fifty-three famiHes. And all of them, 
with the exception of three or four, got rid of their allotments. 
In Hecelchacan, situated in the same State of Campeche, the 
great majority of 200 families sold their farms even before 
they had received their title deeds. In Tenabo, in the same 
district, the 200 families which were to have had farms be- 
stowed upon them, refused to contribute to pay the fee of the 
surveyor who was to have delimited them."^^ 

One of the principal Mexican journals commenting on these 
significant manifestations of the temper of the natives, writes : 
"The land-hunger by which the Mexican rural class is sup- 

9 O. Penst. 

1° A hectare is 2,471 acres. 

11 Sisal hemp which is used in the United States for binding-twine. 
^^ Excelsior, nth April, 1921. 



146 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

posed to be possessed is not noticeable. Above all, there is no 
token of a desire to acquire a piece of unexploited land, with 
a view to put value into it by labour. And in the absence of 
this striving are we to assume that with such a group of people 
we can form a class of husbandmen who will extract from 
the soil not merely the wherewithal for their own existence 
but also further produce to augment the resources of the en- 
tire community? What we do behold is eagerness to get pos- 
session of lands already cultivated by others and improved by 
various installations, machinery, etc. And that is what, to 
employ the term used by the Commissions, we feel tempted 
to call plunder."" 

It is fair, however, to admit in advance that some of these 
phenomena may be capable of an explanation by local condi- 
tions which differs from that ascribed to it by those investi- 
gators and it is also worth noting that in the northern States 
the inhabitants are both able and willing husbandmen. 

Those American would-be saviours of Mexico who seem 
bent on having the Constitution of 1917 abolished argue that 
the principle of nationalisation is an apple of discord which 
will keep the population of the Republic in a continuous fer- 
ment that may at any moment come to a head in civil war. 
They add that a standing menace of this gravity is a matter 
of deep concern to themselves and that in the interests of 
both countries it must be removed. This is another striking 
instance of the two-fold aspect of all Mexico's troubles. 
Every domestic problem presents disconcerting international 
bearings concerning the solution of which the northern Re- 
public has a friendly word to say. It may not be amiss to 
glance at the nexus between the "anticipated civil war" and 
the principle of nationalisation as it appears to the American 
reformers. It is found in the gross injustice which is bel.ig 
done to Mexican citizens who in virtue of the law are being 
denied rights accorded to foreigners. The State Department 
in Washington is reported to have formulated an anticipatory 
protest against the probable sub-division of large agricultural 
estates. Thereupon the American charge d'affaires, Mr. 
^3 Ibidem. 



FLAWS IN CONSTITUTION OF 1917 147 

Summerlin, is said to have made a report to Secretary Hughes 
to the effect that he had heard indirectly that the Mexican 
Government had affirmed its resolve not to break up any 
estates belonging to American citizens." What that would 
mean is that American citizens would enjoy privileges while 
Mexicans are to forfeit rights. 

Against this one-sided arrangement the Mexican press has 
uplifted its voice with passionate emphasis and curious fore- 
boding. "It is no secret," writes one of the principal organs, 
"that various foreign land-owners who protested against the 
encroachments on their property made by the local agrarian 
juntas have received redress. Mexicans, on the other hand, 
have been compelled to resign themselves to the abuses and 
to endure this spohation." Very significantly the journal 
adds : "It is not we Mexicans who will protest against the 
'inequality of treatment' thus meted out to residents of one 
and the same country under the same laws; it is unquestion- 
able that the protests will emanate from the foreigners." . . , 
In effect, it is unquestionable. Many other .analogous demands 
put forward by outlanders operate and are meant to operate 
as wedges for splitting up the actual State structure. Another 
of the "dangers" confidently predicted consists in this, that 
the Mexican landlords seeing themselves defenceless will, as 
a last resort, dispose of their properties to foreigners.^^ 

The sudden discovery of oil in the State of Tabasco precipi- 
tated matters. Tabasco is a State in which Mexican landlords 
are numerous and they naturally enough hastened to strike 
the iron while it was hot and make the most of their posses- 
sions. The petroleum companies, equally eager to fructify the 
opportunity, had their representatives hie to the spot, where 
transactions were effected with a speed which took the au- 
thorities by surprise. "A veritable fever has fallen upon the 
businessmen of the United States," writes one of the Mex- 
ican press organs ^® "and likewise upon the foreign companies 
which own oil interests in Mexico, actuating them to acquire 

^^ Excelsior, 15th April, 1921. 

^5 Ibidem. 

^^ Excelsior, 8th April, 1921. 



148 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

rights in Tabasco where there is no longer any doubt that 
the subsoil contains petroleum in vast quantities. ... A 
legion of agents of the oil companies rushed hither-thither 
hunting for the owners of the lands from whom they pro- 
posed to lease or buy them on such advantageous terms that 
the authorities were put on their guard." " 

Thereupon the Central Government instructed the Gov- 
ernor to hinder transactions of the nature described and in- 
formed him that a commission would shortly be despatched 
to Tabasco. But here again the federal system, not the Con- 
stitution of 1917, was made the pretext for obstruction. The 
Governor of Tabasco proposed to have special State legisla- 
tion passed on the subject, independently of the Federal Gov- 
ernment ! On this the Ministry of Industry telegraphed point- 
ing out that the only authority competent to make laws on 
the subject was the central government, to which alone, as the 
nation's trustee, the produce of the subsoil belonged, and that 
consequently transactions concluded by the landowners with 
agents of the oil companies would be null and void. This 
injunction was beyond all question warranted. For Article 
27 of the Constitution of 1917 nationalises the produce of the 
subsoil from the date on which it was promulgated, but only 
from that date. Lands purchased or leased before then 
will have to be excepted, but none others. Now the Ministry 
of Industry and Commerce is said to have cognisance of 
crooked deals concluded between agents of oil companies 
and owners of lands last March in which, with the connivance 
of the sellers, a false date was registered, a date anterior to 
the publication of the Constitution of 1917, for the purpose 
of obtaining the benefits of the clause of non-retroactivity." 
The greed of gold is almost as fertile a source of ingenuity 
as natural hunger and a more powerful dissolvent of the 
moral law. 

In Mexico where a long spell of anarchy has made the 
voice of misery imperious and that of morality often in- 
audible, money can accomplish things greater than in Europe, 

1'' Excelsior, 8th April, 1921. 
18 Universal, 9th April, 1921. 



FLAWS IN CONSTITUTION OF 1917 149 

but not as great as in the most cultured States of the New- 
Continent. Patriotism which is not a particularly hardy plant 
among certain sections of the Mexican population can but 
fitfully withstand its subtle withering force. Hence the temp- 
tation to owners of lands and agents of oil companies to con- 
spire to defeat the law. Hence, too, the accusations so freely 
bandied about of late by the press organs, the one accusing 
the other of selling its convictions for the money of the oil 
companies and the retaliatory charges of blackmail launched 
against certain newspaper managers by the oil companies' 
representatives." Thus the "Universal" writes triumphantly 
at the close of one of these unedifying controversies: "If any- 
body has asked or received money from the oil men, it is 
the very people who some months ago dared to calumniate 
the Universal'." ^^ 

The fact would seem to be that in certain spheres of dem- 
agogy in Mexico as elsewhere it is occasion that makes people 
honest. And the task of President Obregon is rendered un- 
commonly difficult and dangerous by the rareness of this 
occasion, owing to the frequent offers of bribes. Some for- 
eign agents have done much to foster and spread corruption. 
For the laws of the State and those of morality present but 
a frail barrier against systematic dishonesty. This unsavoury 
theme, however, deserves special treatment. The President 
surely knows that to-day no less than in the epoch of Moses, 
whenever the dance around the golden calf is as lively as it is 
in the oil region, the tables of the law are doomed to be broken. 
And he and many of his compatriots have often fervently 
wished that Nature had not handicapped Mexico with a sin- 
ister combination : the boon of vast material wealth, the draw- 
back of a listless, poverty-stricken population and the bless- 
ing of a progressive neighbour endowed with the gift of ex- 
ploiting both. Patriotic Mexicans must feel tempted to re- 

19 The legal adviser of the Huesteca Petroleum Company, Senor Caste- 
lazo Fuentes, publicly stated that the Manager of the Heraldo de Mexico 
offered him the neutrality of that paper and its silence for fifteen thousand 
dollars and the Manager asserts that it was Sehor C. Fuentes who sought 
for the alliance of a good newspaper. Cf. Heraldo, 19th March, 1921, and 
the Universal, i8th March, 1921. 

20 Ibidem. 



150 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

peat the words uttered by Senora Torcuata in Alarcon's story 

of the buried treasure : "Accursed be treasures and mines and 
devils and everything else that lies buried beneath the surface 
of the earth, excepting water and the dead bodies of the 
faithful." =^ 

21 "Malditos scan los tesoros, y las minas, y los diablos, y todo lo que 
esta debajo de tierra, menos el agua y los fieles defuntos." Cf. Moros y 
Cristianos, by Pedro A. de Alarcon, Chapter XIII. 



CHAPTER XV 
Oil and Politics 

That Mexico's destinies should be influenced if not dom- 
inated by the oil interests is natural and inevitable. These 
constitute such a paramount element in her economic life that 
even domestic politics in that country is now wedded to them 
for better or for worse. 

The American oil companies in Mexico recently an- 
nounced ^ that during the first quarter of 1921 oil stood for 
no less than 62.1 per cent of that country's total exports to 
the United States, while of its principal imports (manufac- 
tures of iron and steel) 40 per cent enter very largely into 
the oil industry. Thus it is petroleum that supplies the staple 
of Mexico's foreign trade and industry and will have to 
bear the brunt of taxation. The bulk of the revenue is drawn 
from that, and before other forms of commerce and in- 
dustry can be fully revived or be called to life to vie with oil, 
the treaty, it is assumed, will have been signed and the Con- 
stitution amended or abolished, or else Mexico will be on the 
way to Cubanisation. That is the current belief in the United 
States. No wonder the attention of natives and foreigners 
is focussed upon the sub-soil and its treasures or that the 
contemporary history of the Republic is soaked through and 
through with oil. But the allegation that the oil men have 
lately broken bounds and encroached upon the domain of 
politics should not blind one to the fact that certain of their 
grievances were genuine and their demand for the protection 
of private property justified at least in law. 

The owners of the oil fields, the organisers of the inde- 
pendent industries, the capitalists and the shippers are mostly 
men of English speech. The land which they exploit was 
bought or leased, sometimes at very low prices and rents, but 

iln a pamphlet entitled: "What Oil Means to Mexico." 

161 



152 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

in most cases in formal accordance with the legislation in 
vigour at the time. Hence their titles are on the whole juri- 
dically unassailable. On other and higher grounds their titles 
have been called in question, but with this aspect of the matter 
we are not concerned. It was that legislation, then, wise or 
unwise, which guaranteed their rights to the produce of the 
subsoil and warranted a large expenditure of money, brains 
and labour in research and exploitation. It is true that they 
enriched themselves rapidly, but they also benefited indi- 
rectly and to a far too limited extent the country whence they 
drew and exported their wealth. And, like most foreigners 
of English speech, the bulk of them were well-meaning, blus- 
tering and ill-informed and their attempts to get on with the 
natives kindly, clumsy and unsuccessful. 

One day the law which had protected their enterprise was 
partially altered by the legislative enactment ^ which has given 
rise to the sequence of grievances, protests and problems that 
now threaten the sovereignty of the Republic. For at bottom 
the stake at present at issue is the sovereignty of the Mex- 
ican State and not merely protection of rights or redress of 
grievances. 

According to Mexican accounts, there was no active co-oper- 
ation between American investors and Mr. Fall until the down- 
fall of the Carranza Administration. Most of the former 
professed to be eager only for the enjoyment of their legal 
rights. They occasionally hinted at intervention in wild un- 
measured terms, but their deliberate aim as expressed to others 
was professedly unpolitical. That was a prudent attitude. 
For so long as Carranza retained the reins of power there was 
no need of any co-ordinate action on the part of the politicians 
and the oil groups, because it was manifest to all that his 
policy if persisted in after March, 1921, would end by pro- 
voking intervention. And there was a general consensus of 
opinion that his successor would uphold that policy unflinch- 
ingly. It was for this welcome conjuncture that the Fall 
Report was hurriedly terminated and published. Had the 
salutary revolutionary movement headed by General Obregon 

2 By Article 27. 



OIL AND POLITICS 153 

been trampled out, as Carranza believed and assured me it 
would, be, there is not the slightest reason to doubt that 
American intervention, together with all that that implies, 
was a foregone conclusion, little though the late President 
realised the danger. And certain of the foreign interests 
were waiting for that and preparing to profit by it. 

At this posture of affairs I visited the Republic. I came 
equipped with only a general knowledge of Mexican affairs 
at their points of contact with world politics and of Mexican 
history, including that of the Maya civilisation and language 
which I had studied many years before. My first step was 
to betake myself to the study of the political and social con- 
ditions, to bring to bear upon them an independent judgment 
and freely to record the results of my observations in the 
light in which they appeared to me. I was fettered by no 
preconceived ideas or purpose. 

I found that the potential results of the great revolution 
which had placed Seiior Carranza at the head of the Republic 
had been exchanged for the small money of personal and 
partisan aggrandisement. A revolution can justify itself only 
by working desirable changes, by setting up a better ordering 
than that which it pulled down. And this justification was 
lacking. Local, State, national and international affairs were 
going from bad to worse. The misery of the common people 
was widespread and intense. This I could attest as an eye 
witness, for I went among the lowest and most forlorn sec- 
tions of the population in several cities, visited their squalid 
dens, conversed with the sick, came in contact with some who 
were homeless, diseased and dying uncomplainingly. Only 
the persons who have beheld the results of the Allied block- 
ade on the children and the women of Central Europe can 
paint a fairly adequate mental picture of some of the scenes 
and types that came to my notice. Financially, economically 
and politically the inhabitants of one of the richest countries 
on the globe had sunk into a Serbonian bog of misery and 
disease and were fast going under. The Federal State was 
little more than a board of directors working for its own 
enrichment and that of its friends. Its every undertaking 



154 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

resembled a structure raised on the quicksands. The convic- 
tion was forced upon me that with Carranza or a puppet of 
his choice grasping the helm the Ship of State was doomed 
to flounder in United States waters and to receive a pilot 
from that Republic. That was evident to the dullest appre- 
hension. The men of money desired only that it should be- 
come widely known and that the American public should be 
properly keyed to the coming transformation of Mexico. 

The principal objects of the Carranza Government as they 
seemed to me were the establishment of the regime on solid 
foundations and the perpetuation in power of the President's 
partisans. All foreign and domestic policies were at that time 
being carefully subordinated to those aims. I found no 
united nation, no self-conscious classes, no compact organism. 
Before a group had time to crystallise and become the 
nucleus of an influential political or social organism, it 
was dissolved in the crucible and poured anew into the 
seething mass. There was no middle class, no farmers' 
class, no constitutional opposition. Every section of the popu- 
lation which in virtue of its special interests, material or spir- 
itual, of its traditions, aims or ideas might be expected to 
favour a fixed independent policy or to form a solid kernel 
around which other groups might rally had been disintegrated. 
For among the postulates of the system were an indifferent 
or at any rate a quiescent population and the absence of or- 
ganised opposition. And these postulates were secured by 
threats of severe punishment. The conclusion was forced 
upon me that such a Government could not claim to be 
national, pacific, constitutional or stable and was therefore 
but a gliding shadow deserving no more than a chronological 
record. 

From every view-point then Mexico seemed to me to be the 
embodiment of stagnation. There was no social, no political, 
no industrial movement in the country, no burning issues, no 
spiritual or intellectual life, no salutary contest between oppos- 
ing principles, no established way of shaping public opinion 
or sentiment with a view of enlisting them in the service 
of men, — in a word, none of the various manifestations which 



OIL AND POLITICS 155 

denote and foster national vitality, nothing but stagnation and 
sullen resignation on the one hand and endless petty strife, 
more purposeless then the civil war of the Fronde, on the 
other hand. Under such conditions no political development 
or social growth, no satisfaction to the deepest and best ele- 
ments of human nature, seemed possible. Politico-social recon- 
struction was out of the question so long as the Carranza 
regime, which was partly answerable for this deplorable con- 
dition, held the field. And many of the signs and tokens 
pointed to its surviving, at any rate until the advent and 
action of the Republican Administration in the United States. 
The conclusion was drawn by interested foreign observers 
that the regenerative force necessary and adequate to infuse 
a new spirit into the country could come only from without 
because in Mexico Itself under prevailing conditions collec- 
tivity of effort was an impossibility. Hence the foreign re- 
formers could content themselves with watching, waiting and 
bruiting abroad the true state of affairs. 

At the end of Carranza's political road, therefore, which 
seemed bound to be disastrous, lurked Intervention or worse. 
On the only occasion when I conversed with him I ventured 
to intimate to him in courteous language that I was convinced 
of this. For so far as one could then see there was no 
tertium quid worth considering. A revolution was Indeed a 
possibility and is assumed by onlookers In the United States 
to be sempiternally Impending. None of the interested spec- 
tators, political or industrial, anticipated an improvement from 
any such upheaval. On the contrary, they expected confusion 
to be worse confounded and Intervention to be more peremp- 
torily called for. And from this chaos they would evolve an 
order all their own. 

And therein lay the source of their fateful miscalcula- 
tion. 

For while I was still Investigating conditions, a sudden 
and root-reaching change came over the situation. A deus 
ex machina in the person of General Obregon appeared and 
put a wholly different complexion on the national and inter- 
national problems by introducing an element of transforma- 



156 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

tion. At first neither the nature nor the vastness of this 
metamorphosis was reahsed by those foreign spectators who 
are wont to lump all Mexicans in one class and label it "in- 
ferior" or "benighted." But as soon as I began to record my 
impressions of General Obregon, my estimate of the extent 
to which his iniluence would upset current expectations and 
projected policies and my conviction that in his case the 
line between biography and national history w^ould shortly 
fade away, the attitude of those interested foreigners under- 
went a noteworthy change. They belittled the importance 
of the downfall of Carranza and the advent of the new men 
and sought to force an issue on the strength of the Fall 
Report which Obregon's assurances had consigned to the 
limbo of history. They also strove by every means in their 
power to. hinder American excursionists from visiting ^Mexico 
and published an appeal to certain Chambers of Commerce 
with this object. They would fain cause Mexico's history 
to stop short on the last page of the Fall Report and direct 
the ensuing stream of public indignation against the Mexican 
Republic, while ignoring the complete change in the situa- 
tion which the just and friendly polity of the new Adminis- 
tration had imported into the problem. Translated into plain 
English, there curious manoeuvres meant that the politico- 
capitalist group was determined to persist in its policy of 
pra?ter-diplomatic pressure — or in plain English, intervention, 
— for the purpose of depriving the greatest and wealthiest of 
the Latin-American Republics of its sovereignty. 

Thenceforward they announced their conviction, to which 
they still hold fast, that no promises of the Mexican Govern- 
ment, no legislative acts of the IMexican Congress, can provide 
them with conditions which they deem advantageous enough 
for their enterprise. They long sighed for the halcyon days 
of Don Porfirio when fear of Yankee intervention was the 
"fantasma" which moved the ]\rexican Executive to accord 
them all that they asked for. And as none of the "coming 
men" whom they flattered and disciplined and prepared for 
presidential duties contrived to reach the goal of his ambitions, 
they lost heart for a time but continued to keep a look-out for 



OIL AND POLITICS 157 

the "man of destiny" who would enable them to execute their 
design. 

After a while — so the Mexican narrative runs — they joined 
forces with the enterprising politician in the United States 
who was believed to be conversant with every phase of Mexi- 
can affairs, in fact with most matters excepting the psychology 
of the people. Desirous of making a dent in the history of his 
country, this statesman drew up a programme in which he un- 
folded his own conceptions of the relations that should sub- 
sist between Mexico and the United States. It included the 
treaty which Mr. Hughes has since made his own, the abolition 
of certain articles of the Constitution, preferential treatment 
of Americans in commerce and industry, an arrangement 
which would virtually give to the State Department in Wash- 
ington the rights and privileges of guardianship, a sort of 
Piatt amendment for choice. And all that is now lacking to 
its realisation are the occasion and the Mexican man of des- 
tiny. The former would have been supplied by a revolution — 
it too failed to come off at the date fixed — or the perpetuation 
of Carranza's policy, and the latter by one of two types of 
President: a fanatical obstinate anti-Yankee or a subservient 
tool who would consent to see Mexico's needs eye-to-eye with 
the groups in question and to carry out its behests. 

If Mexico is still a sovereign State to-day, it is because 
neither the occasion nor the man has been forthcoming. There 
is no revolution threatening. Peace and order have been re- 
established. Reforms of every kind are being pressed forward. 
Business has revived to such an extent that in the month of 
May, 1 92 1, only four countries bought more goods in the 
United States than Mexico, who imported more than all the 
countries of South America by nearly two million dollars. 
The Federal Army has been reduced from 105,000 to 77,000 
men and by the autumn it will number only 50,000. 
Despite the defective condition of much of the railways' roll- 
ing stock the trains run almost on time and accidents are fewer 
in relation to the number of passengers than in France. 

In this way the anticipated occasion was brilliantly warded 
off — and the realisation of the guardianship project which had 



158 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

reckoned with a totally different situation had to be post- 
poned. The economic grievances wrongly ascribed to Article 
XXVII of the Constitution were next relied upon. Fears 
were expressed that oil properties would be confiscated. These 
apprehensions, however, were speedily dispelled first by Presi- 
dent de la Huerta and then by President Obregon. The latter 
has solemnly promised to respect all property rights in the 
country and that Mexico's debts will be paid to the uttermost 
farthing and he has shown that he means what he said. But 
what was most resented in his public utterances was his deter- 
mination to see that the people of Mexico, whose treasures 
have for ages been flowing ceaselessly into the coffers of 
strangers, shall have a fair share of what still remains in the 
soil. 

In this way the ground was completely cut from under the 
feet of those restless foreign corporations which were press- 
ing forward their scheme of readjustment. And Mexicans 
hoped and believed that with these dangers dislodged a com- 
plete and satisfactory understanding with the United States 
Government would be a mere matter of days or weeks. But 
the camel's nose was suddenly thrust into the Mexican tent 
and a treaty insisted upon as a condition antecedent to recog- 
nition — whereupon the hopes of the would-be ethical guard- 
ians revived, that the rest of the camel would shortly 
follow. 

That the American people whose sense of fair play is almost 
proverbial approves this procedure is not believed by Mexi- 
cans who have resided in the United States. A noteworthy 
section of the American press expresses the same disbelief. 
Commenting on the admirable programme set forth by Presi- 
dent Obregon in the Nczv York IForld, that journal writes: 
"The Executive who stands for such a programme and the fol- 
lowers who uphold it are worthy of more consideration than 
is implied in demands from our State Department for imme- 
diate legislation defining constitutional provisions. The United 
States in assuming to dictate what laws Mexico shall pass does 
what it would not permit any foreign Power in its own case 
even to suggest. If there are interests in the United States 



OIL AND POLITICS 159 

that desire to postpone recognition in order to weaken the 
Obregon regime and prepare the way for a Government as 
amenable to outside discipline as was that of the Dictator 
Diaz, the continuing barrage of active Mexican propaganda 
may be easily understood." ^ 

One can hardly blame the Mexicans for ascribing the vari- 
ous plots and outbreaks of the month of July — especially those 
the scene of which was the oil country — ^to that discontented 
element which alone would have profited by their success. 
Suspicion, we are assured, is borne out by tangible proof. If 
this be true, and a genuine plot is unmasked, one cannot affect 
surprise if those to whom the guilt is brought home, whoever 
they may be, are regarded by Mexicans as the most pestilent of 
their enemies. The day is not far distant when that evidence 
— if it exists — must be produced. The statement has been 
published by the Mexican press that at the conspirative meet- 
ings held by Robles Dominguez Cantu, Pablo Gonzalez and 
General Murghia, a representative of the oil companies from 
Washington was present* 

But for those things the Mexican mind was prepared. 
Hence although they might arouse resentment they could not 
awaken surprise. What stirred the people to the quick was 
the disillusion caused by Mr. Hughes' demand. They had 
built upon his sense of justice, his fervid honesty and his 
breadth of practical wisdom and were buoyed up with the 
hope that he would recognise the change that had taken place 
in Mexico, rate at its just value the work of social reconstruc- 
tion which is going forward there and the readjustment of its 
relations with the United States, and would strike out a policy 
at once amicable, generous and congruous with these new and 
deciding facts. They still think highly of Mr. Hughes' mo- 
tives but deem them more interesting to the biographer than 
to the historian and they feel strongly about his Mexican 
policy. 

During the years that elapsed between the promulgation of 
the new Constitution and the overthrow of the Carranza 

3 New York World, 28th June, 1921. 

* See for example El Heraldo de Mexico, June 19th, 1921. 



IGO MEXICO OX THE VERGE 

regime," all that was needed to put Mexico right with foreign 
States was the redemption of the plighted word of her Presi- 
dent. And nothing w'ould have been easier for her while 
Mr. Lansing was Secretary of State than to have settled on 
equitable and easy terms with her aggrieved neighbours; for 
the issues were then reduced to their narrowest compass and 
simplest forms, and even the oil companies might conceivably 
have been contented with strict justice. Why should any- 
thing more be exacted to-day? Every demand made by the 
State Department in Washington during those years of storm 
and distress has been acquiesced in by President Obregon 
and more. But the requirements of the Department have 
grown and been made to include a claim which amounts to 
an implicit denial of Mexico's sovereignty. To constrain a 
State to sign a treaty to which it has a rooted objection con- 
notes a wholly new departure in international politics. And 
Mexico can hardly be expected to contribute to its establish- 
ment. It goes beyond the terms put forward by IMr. Lan- 
sing and rejected by Sefior Carranza. It transcends the former 
demands of the oil companies and of other American in- 
vestors. It is rooted in a wholly different soil. It is a new 
postulate, political in character, commensurate with Latin 
America in extent and cosmic in its bearings. In short, it 
is the foundation stone of the vast fabric which is destined 
to keep the world divided into a dual system of w-hich one 
part would temporarily recognise the overlordship of the 
non-American peoples of English speech and the other the 
hegemony of the United States. 

A formal treaty with Mexico did not become an official 
condition of settlement, still less of recognition, until Mr. 
Colby was appointed Secretary' of State. And a treaty 
embodying what Mr. Fall termed "special agreements" and 
"recognition of the Monroe Doctrine" has, it appears, not 
been seriously contemplated at any time by the State Depart- 
ment. Even now Secretary Hughes has not formally adopted 
any portion of the Fall programme but one. The preamble 
of the scheme fathered by Mr. Fall gathers up the many 

" 191 7 and 1920, 



OIL AND POLITICS 161 

rumoiH.s, facts, accusations and calumnies that lay scattered 
in the unfavourable judgments passed on Mexico for a num- 
ber of years. His line of reasoning is simple. The Mexican 
governing class is pictured as devoid of the capacity for 
governing or building up. The nation which it impersonates 
is destructive by habit if not by nature and the political 
atmosphere in which it lives and works is mephitic. The bulk 
of the people, pillaged or neglected by the ruling group, has 
for generations been buffeted to and fro on the waves of 
misery and disease. Like the blind fish in certain cave-lakes 
one of its senses is atrophied. The whole Republic is in an 
advanced stage of decomposition. It recognises no moral, no 
legal restraint. Its plighted troth is worthless. To-day, there- 
fore, do what they may, Obregon and his fellow workers 
cannot possibly reorganise and maintain it on a basis which 
would challenge and receive the approval of any righteous 
State. Mexico's only chance lies in securing the active and 
unremitting co-operation of the United States. And this 
co-operation should be given only on America's terms which 
include all the privileges of ethical, financial and economic 
guardianship. Hence the sole sheet anchor of salvation is for 
the Mexican President to bow to the inevitable and smooth 
the way for its reception by the people. This is at once his 
opportunity and his probationary ordeal. Patriotism and 
personal interest alike should prompt him to turn the turbid 
rill of Mexico's history into the mighty waters of America's 
destinies. His countrymen would then be admitted to a share 
in the boons enjoyed only by the most progressive race of the 
world. Bending is better than being broken. But if he be too 
high-spirited to play the leading part in thus patriotically 
knuckling down, then his greatness will entail disaster and may 
lead to his country's undoing. 

It is fair to say that that is a practical corollary of the 
arbitrary premise that all Mexican promises and reforms are 
valueless. For if this be true it follows that, whether they are 
embodied in a bilateral treaty or a one-sided legislative or 
judicial act, they are not worth the paper on which they would 
be written. Any treaty under such circumstances would be 



162 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

valueless unless it conferred on the United States in Mexico 
as in Cuba the right of making its counsel heard and its power 
felt to countervail Mexican remissness. 

Now Mr. Hughes' demand for a treaty antecedent to recog- 
nition is the first step towards the realisation of these designs, 
however little he may suspect it. In this sense one may regard 
it as a temporary substitute for the "occasion" which as we 
saw is recognised as an indispensable condition to the imposi- 
tion of the new relationship between the United States and 
Mexico. And determined efforts have since been made by 
persons whose identity may possibly be revealed by the law 
courts before these lines have seen the light to create an "occa- 
sion" incomparably more auspicious and to champion the 
"man of destiny."" 

As for the man fitted to play the primary role prepared for 
him in this political mystery play, he too has been found but 
like so many of his compeers he has not yet reached the foot- 
lights. His qualifications are not exorbitant : he must be weak 
by temperament, compliant by reflection and mentally vacuous 
enough to serve as the channel through which good advice 
from the North may uninterruptedly flow to the Government 
and population of the Mexican Republic. The framers of 
the project lost sight of the resolve of the Mexican people to 
lead its own life and work out its salvation in its own fashion 
and of the circumstance that it resents being made virtuous by 
act of Congress, parasitical by treaty or wealthy by proxy. 

As military intervention has an ugly ring, it is now rigour- 
ously excluded from the vocabulary of the foreign junta 
which would fain save Mexico in spite of herself. Their plan 
is less simple and more specious. Having found a duly 
qualified President — and there is said to be one now impa- 
tiently waiting abroad — the modus operandi would be some- 
what as follows : The President would first come to a secret 
understanding with the United States Government on the 
subject of the Constitution of 19 17 and of the other conces- 

^ General Pclaez has publicly accused the agents of a certain oil com- 
pany of supplying the rebel General Martinez Herrera with a large sum 
of money to enable him to overthrow the Obregon Government. See The 
Mexican Post, July i6th, 1921. 



OIL AND POLITICS 163 

sions deemed indispensable to the establishment of stable 
friendly intercourse and would receive in return the promise 
of moral, financial and eventually military support and assist- 
ance in carrying out the concerted plan. The first step on the 
part of the State Department, after a definite refusal of recog- 
nition, w^ould be a notice issued to the Mexican nation that the 
people of the United States M^ould not v^ar with them but 
would take effective measures to protect the lives and proper- 
ties of foreigners. And as Mexico would be still without a 
recognised government it would send warships to Vera Cruz 
and "a police force consisting of the naval and military forces 
of our Government into the Republic of Mexico to open and 
maintain open every line of communication between the city 
of Mexico and every sea-port and every border-port of 
Mexico." This force once despatched, the compliant Presi- 
dent, "acting in the highest interests of his country," would 
fulminate a fiery protest against the foreign invaders, denounce 
their incursion as a violation of international right and sum- 
mon them to withdraw at once and permit the Mexican people 
to settle the matter without constraint and congruously with 
its interests and duties. Thereupon the foreign police force 
would be withdrawn in order to enable the Republic to recon- 
sider its position. On this the President would issue a mani- 
festo to the nation, deprecate the violation of its territory, 
point out that the menace was still hanging over its head and, 
in view of the material impossibility of successfully resisting 
the overwhelming force of the invader, would ask for extra- 
ordinary powers to accept the best conditions to be obtained. 
If these powers were accorded to him, he would employ them 
— always in the highest interests of the nation — for the pur- 
pose of concluding the secret compact already agreed upon. 
Should those powers be refused or should a rebellion break 
out at any stage of the proceedings the United States Govern- 
ment would step in to aid and abet the patriotic President by 
every means in its power, as it offered to aid and abet Presi- 
dent Oreste Zamor of Haiti. The procedure is evidently 
stereotyped. 

It is an instructive and illuminating detail that a firm belief 



164 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

was entertained by politicians and capitalists of note in the 
United States who currently pass for authorities on Mexican 
affairs that President Obregon would lend himself as chief 
actor to this international melodrama. On the psychological 
assumptions on which that belief was based and first-hand 
knowledge of which is now accessible, it would be unfruitful 
to dwell here. It may suffice to add that to any one who can 
truly claim acquaintanceship with General Obregon the sup- 
position was preposterous. Fabricius in ancient Rome whose 
name has become a synonym for incorruptible patriotism and 
loyalty was not better panoplied against temptation and menace 
than is the President of the Mexican Republic. 

Schemes of this nature which take it for granted that no 
good can come out of Nazareth have had their natural effect 
on the minds of Mexican statesmen. They see, as they think, 
clearly, the interests which are being tirelessly furthered in 
their country under various high-sounding names and they 
consider them irreconcilable with the complete independence 
of the Republic. Hence their sullen opposition to the insertion 
of what they look upon as the thin edge of the wedge, in the 
shape of a covenant of friendship to be imposed by sheer force. 

But General Obregon does not make the unpardonable mis- 
take of confounding certain interested groups in the neighbour- 
ing Republic with the bulk of the American people whom he 
sincerely admires and in whose unerring sense of justice he 
feels and displays implicit confidence. What he and his fellow 
workers desire is an opportunity to set before that people in its 
daily press the elements of the question at issue, the causes of 
the present misunderstanding, and his country's desire to live 
in genuine amity with that great nation, to profit by its ex- 
ample and to benefit by its friendly co-operation. 



CHAPTER XVI 
The Neo-Monroe Doctrine 

There can be little doubt that all the terms of recognition 
outlined by Mr. Fall in the report of the Senate Sub-Commit- 
tee would have been imposed on Mexico, had the Revolution 
headed by General Obregon been quelled. For they were 
drawn up specially to meet a particular situation and to solve 
the problems to which it gave rise. And Cuban history leaves 
no doubt in our minds what the course of Mexico's affairs 
would then have been. As it chanced however the Mexican 
people was ripe for reform, rose up in arms and overthrew 
the system that was exposing it to that danger. Its leader 
inspired it with a growing passion for social justice which is 
fast bearing fruit and he implanted in the soul of the whole 
nation a sentiment of dignity and self-respect which will stand 
it in good stead during the work of reconstruction which has 
already begun. Every kind of outside pressure put upon the 
people under the new conditions will therefore operate as a 
potent irritant, and that the Mexicans should so regard the 
terms demanded of them as the price of recognition is neither 
surprising nor blameworthy. 

With the overturn of Carranza's regime and the re- 
versal of his policies the motive and justification of the Fall 
recommendations vanished and a new epoch was inaugurated. 
But the lack of preparation in the inelastic minds of North 
American politicians for this swift transformation and the 
strong influence of certain insatiable oil companies partially 
account for the tenacious clinging of the principal framer of 
the recommendations to what might aptly be designated the 
magnum opus of his public life. One can sympathise with a 
diligent worker who after a protracted period of strenuous 
toil, planning for the expansion of his own country at the 
expense of another and fancying he had devised a new and 

165 



IGG MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

puissant agency for the reorganisation of the State systems of 
the world, beholds the outcome of his labour made valueless 
and void by the achievements of a citizen of the backward 
nation whose moral quality and political vision placed him all 
at once in the front rank of reforming statesmen. What Mr. 
Fall offered was a form of guardianship which would admit 
of the United States bringing up Mexico by hand. What 
General Obregon actually accomplished was to set his country 
on its legs and render it wholly independent of ethical, politi- 
cal and economic wardship. And one of the chief causes of 
the deplorable misunderstandings between the two republics 
to-day lies in the inability or slowness of the North American 
Government to realise that the necessity for the drastic 
remedial measures prescribed by the distinguished ex-Senator 
has disappeared. He is a poor surgeon who would insist on 
amputating a limb after it had recovered its pristine strength 
and flexibility. But there are such. 

The roots of the matter, however, lie deeper than a mistake 
in political diagnosis and extend further than the boundaries 
of the Mexican Republic. They spread to all the lands of the 
American Continent south of the Rio Grande and may be 
labelled the Neo-]\Ionroe Doctrine. Mr. Fall's suggestions, 
Mr. Hughes' condition of recognition, the various demands, 
strivings and protests of the foreign capitalists in Mexico are 
all so many tentacles of the doctrine of Monroe. And one 
of the indirect consequences of the World War which has 
stricken so many European powers with palsy is the creation 
of conditions exceptionally favourable to its resuscitation, 
growth and spread. 

The friends of this elusive canon admit that it thrives on 
anarchy and confusion. And its enemies maintain that it 
produces the conditions on which it lives and thrives. 

The Monroe Doctrine, long dormant and never authorita- 
tively defined, is looked upon by easy-going Americans as an 
old-fashioned weapon of defence again.st Europe's long for- 
gotten velleities of conquest by means of colonisation. And 
they consign it to the dusty archives rather than to the arsenal 
of effective political armaments. Those among them to whom 



THE NEO-MONROE DOCTRINE 167 

current history is not a sealed book invoke good authority for 
their contention. For example, William Graham Sumner, the 
patriotic American, terms the doctrine a fetish and asks : 
"Does the United States intend to deny that the States of South 
America are independent States open to access by any other 
nations and liable to have any kind of friendly or unfriendly 
relations with European States such as any two independent 
States may have with each other ?"^ President Wilson an- 
swered that question in the following passage of a public 
speech: "It is none of my business . . . how long they (the 
Mexican people) take in determining what their Government 
should be. Their country is theirs. The Government is theirs. 
Have not European nations taken as long as they wanted, and 
spilt as much blood as they pleased, in settling their affairs? 
And shall we deny that to Mexico, because she is weak ? No, 
I say."^ That interpretation was as authoritative as any. And 
it reassured the States of Latin America whose peace of mind 
had been perturbed by the imperialistic utterances of respon- 
sible and irresponsible politicians. But President Wilson's 
successor implicitly puts a different construction on it, as indeed 
Mr. Wilson himself did in other declarations and acts of his. 
And yet Mexico and the sister Republics are expected, nay 
enjoined, by Mr. Fall to accept formally, solemnly and irre- 
vocably what he is pleased to term the "Monroe Doctrine." 
Those Americans who complain that one Mexican President 
is apt to reverse the political maxims of his predecessor and 
go on a wholly new tack are the best qualified to comprehend 
the bewilderment of the Mexicans when faced by these contra- 
dictions and the fervour of their desire to be freed from the 
painful uncertainty now prevailing respecting the policies of 
successive administrations of the United States. 

That lucid statement was not the only one given to the 
world by Mr. Wilson. 

Incidentally that President dealt a stunning blow to the 
imperialist interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine when he 

1 War and Other Essays, by W. G. Sumner, p. 6i. 

2 Speech delivered at Indianapolis on January 8th, 1915. In June of the 
same year the President struck a wholly different note, but that was 
ignored in Mexico City, 



168 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

announced that "all the governments of America stand, so far 
as we are concerned, upon a footing of genuine equality and 
unquestioned independence."^ x\nd Mexicans pertinently ask 
how they can satisfy the demands of the great Northern Re- 
public if one of its Presidents contradicts or cancels the solemn 
utterances of his predecessor in a matter of such moment. 
And following the American demand for a treaty defining 
these reciprocal relations, they ask for an authoritative defini- 
tion of the Monroe Doctrine. 

Mr. Sumner, commenting upon President Cleveland's refer- 
ence to the doctrine, wrote : "He talks about the Monroe 
Doctrine and he tells us solemnly that it is true and sacred, 
whatever it is. He even undertakes to give some definition 
of what he means by it; but the definition which he gives 
binds nobody, either now or in the future, any more than 
what Monroe and Adams meant by it binds anybody now not 
to mean anything else."* In another passage the same author 
says: "li you want w^ar, nourish a doctrine ... it would 
ruin a doctrine to define it, because then it could be analysed, 
tested, criticised and verified; but nothing ought to be tolerated 
which cannot be so tested."^ Accordingly the Monroe Doc- 
trine has never been authoritatively defined. It is a blank 
cheque on which any sum may be wTitten by the State Depart- 
ment in Washington. Hence Mexico refuses to sign it. 

If the princij)le underlying those important pronounce- 
ments represented the policy of the United States Govern- 
ment, as might well l^e the case, seeing that President Wilson 
was as great an authority on the subject as President Monroe, 
the doctrine might decently be buried, for it would certainly 
be dead. But in the course of the World War this canon, 
quickened into fresh vitality by combination with a principle 
misnamed "manifest Destiny," has tacitly become the palladium 
of certain superior races who feel themselves charged with a 
providential mission to guide their lesser brethren and shoulder 
the "white man's precious burden." To-day therefore under 

^Message to Congress, 7th December, 1013. 

•* fTar and Other Essays, by W. G. Sumner, p. 38. 

" Op. cit. p. 36. 



THE NEO-MONROE DOCTRINE 169 

the pressure of economic necessity the dogma and its gloss 
bid fair to crystalHse into a political maxim which may be 
formulated thus: "If an inferior nation cannot or will not 
develop the natural resources of the country it inhabits, the 
superior race on the other side of its frontiers has the right 
and the duty to develop them and to take the inferior nation 
under its guidance." 

In effect certain progressive peoples are seriously recon- 
sidering the accepted doctrines of democracy, progress and 
self-determination with a view to their amendment. Limita- 
tions have already been set upon these and upon various other 
forms of liberty. The State has begun to make weak-willed 
individuals virtuous by statute and from this to the reforma- 
tion of weak-willed States by a neighbouring Superstate in the 
name of humanity and economics there is only a step and it 
looks as though it too would shortly be taken. Such is the 
trend of social thought to-day among those advanced nations 
who believe that their moral vision fits them for the work of 
discerning the needs of their backward neighbours and devis- 
ing the ways and means of satisfying these. The functions 
of government are thus being stretched so as to cover part of 
the sphere formerly regulated by religion and the moral law. 

This innovation looks like the prelude to a new altruistic 
move which will bring together in close contact the lion and 
the lamb, the hawk and the pheasant. And neither the lamb 
nor the pheasant like the prospect. It is generally considered 
an ill sign to see the fox manifest tenderness toward the lamb. 
This introduction of "morality" into international polity was 
applied at the Peace Conference in Paris in the shape of the 
system of mandates for such backward and wealthy lands as 
Mesopotamia, Persia and Syria, and it bids fair to leaven 
politics with this new type of international ethics in other 
regions and in a way never struck out before. It may become 
in the international sphere what prohibition is in the national. 
In the western hemisphere it was implicitly adopted by the 
versatile President Wilson when he wrote to Carranza: "I 
therefore call upon the leaders of Mexico to act. ... If they 
cannot accommodate their differences and unite for this great 



170 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

purpose within a very short time, this Government will be 
constrained to decide what means should be employed by the 
United States in order to help Mexico save herself and serve 
her people.""^ Here we have the magic word fated to attract 
and crystallise the floating ideas and aspirations of the new 
era which have not yet been embodied in practical politics. 
Mexico must be helped to save herself. And yet her Govern- 
ment "stands upon a footing of genuine equality." President 
Roosevelt with whom I had the privilege of exchanging views 
on this subject upheld the same principle and looked to it for 
the solution of the Latin-American riddles. Publicly he laid 
it down ' that "chronic wrong-doing or an impotence which 
results in a general loosening of the ties of civilised society 
may in America as elsewhere ultimately require intervention 
by some civilised nation, and in the western JieniispJiere the 
adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine niay 
force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases 
of such wrong-doing or impotence, to the exercise of an inter- 
national police power. It is a mere truism to say that every 
nation whether in America or elsewhere, which desires to 
maintain its freedom, its independence, must ultimately realise 
that the right of such independence cannot be separated from 
the responsibility of making good use of it." But who is the 
judge? The Power that is able and willing to employ force? 
And suppose its economic interest in intervening overbears its 
judgment, what then ? Is there to be no appeal ? Apparently 
not. 

Now that would seem to be the accepted way of applying the 
enlarged Monroe Doctrine to-day on the principle that duty 
changes with conditions and rights expand commensurately 
with responsibilities. All that is further needed in order to 
reveal the concrete embodiment of the canon thus widened 
and raised to the status of a world-policy is to determine 
which are the nations thus qualified to intervene helpfully in 
the internal affairs of a restless neighbour, for the laudable 
purpose of raising barriers to the possible spread of anarchism 

•Note dated June 2nd, 1913. 

' In his annual message to Congress in 1904. 



THE NEO-MONROE DOCTRINE 171 

and attuning progress there to the rhythm of the culture-bear- 
ing race. The necessity of instructing the executors of the 
Monroe Doctrine, who were already admittedly the protectors 
of a whole continent against foreign aggression, with the in- 
terpretation and maintenance of the basic principles of social 
stability and accepting them as moderators and mentors of 
backward American communities in matters of social, political 
and moral advancement, and of generalising this principle and 
extending this trust, is being slowly stamped into the political 
consciousness of the leaders of the Enghsh-speaking peoples 
throughout the world. 

At first sight it seems to be a maxim capable of working 
vast changes in the destinies of the human race by conjoining 
resolute will with overmastering power and quickening both 
with lofty ethical professions. But the student of history 
knows that world-wide policy, however mild and moral, in- 
variably challenges world-wide resistance for it assumes what 
cannot be accepted universally — that all kinds of culture must 
give way to that of a single type. And this is especially true 
when the privileged form is believed to consist mainly in ma- 
terial well-being, mechanical morality and spiritual pretensions. 

It is fair to add that in such a classification of nations the 
ethical values are necessarily relative. W. G. Sumner lays it 
down plainly that this doctrine is but "a glib and convenient 
means of giving an appearance of rationality to an exercise 
of superior force." * And it is impossible to gainsay the 
statement. He further avers that : "There is something hideous 
in the attitude of one community standing over another to see 
whether the latter is 'fit for self-government.' Is lynching or 
race rioting," he asks, "or negro burning, or a row in the 
legislature, or a strike with paralysed industry, or a disputed 
election, or a legislative deadlock, or the murder of a claimant 
official ... or financial corruption and jobbery, proof of 
unfitness for self-government? If so, any State which was 
stronger than we might take away our self-government on the 
ground that we were unfit for it. It is, therefore, simply a 
question of power, like all the other alleged grounds of inter- 

^ Earth-Hunger and Other Essays, by W, G. Sumner, p. 54. 



172 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

ference of one political body with another, such as humanity, 
sympathy, neighbourhood, internal anarchy, and so on."" 

This deliberate judgment of the eminent American soci- 
ologist is identical with that of serious Mexican politicians. 
They too feel and say that if Mexico were a country devoid of 
natural riches, no Great Power would w'orry much about its 
ethical or social advancement. They would look elsewhere 
for the white man's burden and first scrutinise its contents. 
"Some righteous folks," exclaimed a Mexican to me, "would 
be disappointed if there were no wealthy peoples backward or 
peccant enough to need salvation from w'ithout." The remark 
is true. None the less, it is refreshing to know that there are 
men who profess to lay greater store by the saving of their 
brother's soul than by the cut of his coat or the colour of 
his tie, and nations which think that they set a lower rate on 
their trade and industries in a foreign land than on the moral 
upbringing of its inhabitants. 

But if a privileged race be qualified to sit in judgment on 
less progressive peoples, is it equally capable of deciding what 
is good for them? No one conversant with contemporary 
history can truly answer that query in the affirmative. As a 
whole the politico-social institutions of communities of English 
speech are passably good in themselves and in a rough way 
suit the peoples who elaborated them, because they have 
grown out of their needs and of their national and racial con- 
sciousness. But only a visionary would regard them as ap- 
propriate to all other nations and races. Neither the British 
conception of self-determination nor the North American in- 
terpretation of individual liberty will commend itself to France, 
Italy, or Japan. And as for the craze of imposing the institu- 
tions of either upon such backward communities as Persia or 
Mexico, it would be little less than a crime against humanity. 
Indeed it is no exaggeration to affirm that most of Mexico's 
tribulations are the direct outcome of her own foolish effort 
to model her political system upon that of the United States, 
and of the resolve of the United States Government to punish 
her for the results. 

• War and Other Essays, by W. G. .Sumner, pp. 349-350. 



THE NEO-MONROE DOCTRINE 173 

None the less, the new canon, which might be termed the 
doctrine of ethical guardianship, may possibly be incorporated 
for a time among the unwritten laws of nations in the new 
era which has begun. Already at the Paris Conference it 
received, as we saw, the implicit assent of the greater and 
greedier States which profited by it considerably. They freely 
gave and took mandates to protect well-to-do wards — ^but 
fought shy of poor ones — on the ground that moral responsi- 
bility and guardianship are the correlates of poHtical power 
and high moral standing. And in the near future wherever 
on the globe there happens to be a strong, thriving, order- 
loving, assimilating and progressive people and beside it a 
restless, backward, potentially wealthy, politically incohesive 
State, there will be a strong temptation to apply the principle. 

Divested of its moral wrappages it is the doctrine of might. 
As General Obregon puts it: "The World War is obliging 
great nations to choose between force and justice and the little 
ones can escape from force only by submitting to justice." 

Force decked out in the garb of ethics would seem to be the 
one fixed and immutable point in the various doctrines which 
still inspire Latin-Americans — "the inferior races" — with 
alarm. For what it connotes is the Anglo-Americanisation of 
the western hemisphere. 

The North American politician who dwells in the high 
politico-spiritual latitudes of righteousness professes to regard 
Mexico as a huge decaying organism at the very doors of his 
country and proclaims that it has become a danger not merely 
to group interests or to legitimate political aims but also and 
especially to the normal progress of the world. Atid he re- 
fuses to inquire whether the germs of the decay were imported 
or nurtured by outside influences, as Mexicans assert, and de- 
liberately cultivated by outside sordid interests. He takes the 
ground that the whole organism being tainted with gangrene, 
it is bootless to seek to heal this or that symptom. Of all 
Mexico's democratic institutions he denies that there is one 
which is real. Of all its avowed aspirations he perceives none 
that are attainable. Every native effort put forth to stay the 
moral, social and political dissolution which has played such 



174 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

havoc with the people he dismisses as nugatory. Riveting his 
gaze on the past, he is bhnd to the present and incredulous 
about the future. Hence, to his thinking, none of the func- 
tions of an organised community is being discharged, none of 
the objects of civilised society is being achieved: the State is 
without a Government, the people are devoid of guidance, 
misery stalks a country which alxDunds in all the resources 
necessary and adequate to material well-being. Relations be- 
tween the governing and the governed, between this racial ele- 
ment of the population and that, between the judicial and the 
executive powers, between the States and the Federal Govern- 
ment, although defined by paper laws, are in perpetual flux 
and inextricable confusion. That such a diseased body should 
be left decomposing in the sun during a period of psychic 
epidemics is contrary to that common sense which is to be 
found in the soul of every man of Anglo-Saxon blood. 

Such is the gist of the staple argument in favour of prompt 
action and drastic expedients. Official recognition of the 
Obregon administration will not silence or discourage those 
who rely upon it to-day. It is one of those obsessions or pre- 
texts which are independent of the reasons advanced for hold- 
ing it. Hence it is argument-proof. 

A glance at the curious relationship which prevailed be- 
tween the United States and the Diaz Government will enable 
the reader to perceive why the minds of the average North 
American investor and of the imperialistic politician are stereo- 
typed against any form of future intercourse with Mexico 
further removed from overlordship than that. 

It has been often termed "intervention by 'fantasma.' " 
Whenever the Dictator Diaz whose statecraft was but surface- 
deep desired to carry a measure he was wont to dangle before 
the eyes of the dissentient members of the Cabinet the menace 
of the United States' intervention. This sobering prospect 
which was always efficacious he playfully termed the "fan- 
tasma." The essence of his domestic and international policy 
was respect for property and for all that that implied. Many 
of his own friends and most of his adversaries admit that it 
was an exaggerated respect — a species of idolatry — and that 



THE NEO-MONROE DOCTRINE 175 

some of the ways in which it was manifested were indefensible. 
It was founded, they alleged, on no higher principle than ex- 
pediency and therefore was devoid of a solid basis. One might 
describe it as the quest of material prosperity for the benefit 
of the few. It was the thinnest of materialisms translated 
into politics and as such could not stand the test of time. It 
lost sight of the nobler aspirations of human beings and used 
the bulk of the population as a means to an end instead of 
treating them as the proper end of all governance. Indeed the 
paramount, nay the sole, interest which they had in the matter 
was to rise up in arms against it. 

Diaz' statecraft was but a series of sorry expedients. It 
took hardly any account of distant bearings or interdependent 
relations. The Dictator contented himself with holding up to 
the imagination of his fellow-workers the "fantasma" of 
Yankee intervention and strove to burn into their minds the 
constant peril which Mexico ran of forfeiting her sovereign 
attributes if she failed to retain the good will of the United 
States by foregoing certain of those attributes spontaneously. 
That was the ever-present spectre which haunted the National 
Palace and the legislatures, frightened gainsayers of Diaz' 
policy and kept the Mexican ear open to the breeze of inspira- 
tion which blew steadily from the north side of the Rio 
Grande. Hence the alacrity with which foreigners' claims 
were satisfied, foreigners' complaints were listened to and for- 
eigners' grievances were redressed. Even the Supreme Court 
itself was trained by the Dictator to shape its decisions in strict 
accordance with the requirements of this settled policy and to 
await his injunctions before pronouncing them. It is con- 
tended that on the whole in these law suits right was on the 
side of the foreigners, so that what the President violated was 
not so much essential justice as the mechanism by which it was 
administered and the respect in which it ought to have been 
held. But even admitting this, one cannot gainsay that he 
was sapping the foundations of the State. 

The "fantasma" which silenced opposition and enforced 
unanimity is gone. Many outlanders hoped that General 
Obregon with an eye to his own interests if not to theirs would 



176 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

follow the Dictator's example. They can plead as their excuse 
that they did not know the character of the new President. 
Diaz was solicitous above all else about suppressing revolts, 
murders and other excesses, keeping the seamy side of Mexi- 
can life out of eyeshot and maintaining himself in power. But 
he only partly accomplished these objects and by practices 
which were ruthless. Sacrificing the lives and liberties of a 
section of his own people he pleaded in justification that by 
killing off a few he saved many. Possibly he did. But it is 
credibly alleged that the direct effects of this policy were to 
lay in the materials for the ten years of conflagration that 
began after his overthrow, to create an economic oligarchy of 
grasping foreign capitalists and to keep the Indian workers and 
the poorer classes of the population wretchedly paid, ill housed, 
ill fed and in a state of benighted ignorance. 

The general character of Diaz' rule, which ignored the maxim 
that sheep may be shorn but not flayed, became widely known 
by its fruits, passable in the field of international finance and 
poisonous in the social and political spheres at home. Here is 
a mild sample of the consequences of the vicious economic 
arrangements in vogue. A highly intelligent non-political 
Mexican travelling in the Republic towards the close of the 
Diaz regime found conditions suggestive of those described by 
Arthur Young in France on the eve of the great Revolution. 
'T visited haciendas and factories," he said, "filled with 
workmen who toiled from sun-rise to sun-down for a few 
measures of beans, half a dozen bananas, a little sugar, coffee 
and bread. They were attired in the cheapest of cotton gar- 
ments and slept on coarse mats spread on the earth. Heavily 
in debt to their masters they had no hope of ever freeing 
themselves from thraldom. They were taught to undergo their 
trials uncomplainingly, accepting them as immutable conditions 
of the cosmic scheme of things. In a Chiapas plantation I 
came across a large number of these hopeless toilers, Indians 
most of them, but to my great surprise there was one genuine 
Frenchman among them. This to me was a revelation. I 
questioned the interesting foreigner who wore the same kind 
of ragged garb as the natives and I ascertained that he had 



THE NEO-MONROE DOCTRINE 177 

wandered to the place several years before and, being penniless 
and friendless, had taken work in the plantation, married an 
Indian girl who bore him several children, and continued to 
live there ever since. He had acquired the language of the 
tribe, had contracted, like his comrades, a debt which he could 
never hope to refund and was sullenly contented with his daily 
rations of food which included portions for his wife and 
children. He had no prospect of betterment, no expectation 
of innovation, except the exchange of his wretched hut for 
the grave. 

"I rode away from the plantation heavy at heart meditating 
on the cheerless existence of these semi-human machines and 
their functions in the divine ordering of mundane things, 
when I came up with a strapping young fellow trudging along 
the road. With him I at once entered into conversation. For 
the by-ways of Chiapas were not encumbered with traffic nor 
frequented by travellers, and a meeting with a chance pedes- 
trian was calculated to awaken all one's dormant social in- 
stincts. The wanderer who carried his property in a little 
bundle on his back informed me that he had come from afar 
and was on his way, I think, to Salina Cruz, where he hoped 
to find work. 'But surely you might have found work much 
nearer, in that plantation yonder, for example?' I remarked. 
*Yes, I know,' he replied, 'but that kind of work is of no good 
to me. There is no money in it. All you get is your food and 
barely enough of that. And I am in quest of something else.' 
*0f money ?' I queried. 'Well, you see,' he replied, 'my father 
is employed on that plantation, has been there many years 
and he could give you a wrinkle or two about it. For him it 
is a life sentence in the galleys. He can never get out again 
if I don't help him and I am in search of work that will give 
me the money to buy him out. That is what I am looking for. 
Every mother's son of those workmen over there is laden with 
debts, debts they never fairly contracted and yet can never 
wipe out. For the money they owe they never received. That 
is the way the business is done. I am sorry for my poor 
father who should be resting at his time of life and I am going 
to ransom him if I can get a job that will bring me in a little 



178 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

money. I don't care how heavy the work is or how badly I 
fare myself. What I want is to buy the old man free and 
that is why I am going so far afield.' 'How much does your 
father owe?' The answer was fifty or sixty Mexican dollars. 
I would myself have given the lad the sum he needed if I 
could have afforded it, added my friend, "but my own spare 
cash was very limited. All I could do I did. I made him 
a present of nine Mexican pesos, and my reward was instan- 
taneous. He embraced me. He shed tears of joy. He 
tendered me rapturous thanks which filled me with intense 
grief that I could not do more for him and with abiding 
gladness that I had sent a ray of hope to his aching soul." 

When one contemplates the grinding, relentless spirit in 
which the natives of one of the richest countries in the world 
were thus beggared and crushed by the few who were living 
on the fat of the land and building up colossal fortunes, one 
may still deplore but one can hardly feel surprised at the mad 
attempts made by a section of the downtrodden people to 
annihilate the privileges and sources of power possessed by 
their taskmasters. Probably no such spectacle has been wit- 
nessed anywhere before. Mexico is an Eldorado. Its natural 
resources are incalculable. Even this very year it has pro- 
duced sixty per cent of all the world's output of silver. It is 
capable of maintaining a population of a hundred million peo- 
ple instead of the fifteen or sixteen millions, mostly lack-alls, 
living from hand to mouth. To watch the stream of riches 
flow smoothly by into foreign channels without benefiting 
the bulk of the natives that own it, is a constant provocation 
to lawlessness, the force of which is realised only by those who 
experience it. 

When the opportunity at last arrived and the revolution 
broke out it was expected that a new and improved state of 
affairs would at once ensue. But these hopes have been 
shattered. By whom? Mexicans unhesitatingly answer: "By 
those very groups which have accumulated wealth at our ex- 
pense and are using it to our detriment." If the economic 
resu.scitation of the country has not yet been realised, if for- 
eign capital keeps aloof, if the foreign politicians and indus- 



THE NEO-MONROE DOCTRINE 179 

trial corporations have erected a Chinese wall around the 
country in the hope of reducing it to subjection, is it fair, is it 
humane, to taunt Mexico with its shattered finances, its de- 
fective transport system, its halting internal reforms? 

The would-be foreign masters of the country still look back 
wistfully towards the fantasma of the Diaz regime and are 
hopefully striving to substitute for that another and more 
durable method of exerting a predominant influence over the 
Republic. As this innovation is "Cubanisation," it is a matter 
for surprise among Mexicans that so little heed has been paid 
to this aspect of the subject seeing that if embodied in the con- 
crete proposal which emanates from Mr. Fall it would thrill 
with emotion all the peoples of Latin- America. 

When the demon of terror — the fantasma — was exorcised 
and together with it the ready consideration vanished which 
had theretofore been bestowed upon every expressed or im- 
plied wish of the northern Mentor, the foreign groups turned 
their attention to the filling of this gap. And the execution 
of this scheme is regarded as an essential condition of satis- 
factory relationship between the two Republics. It would 
seem as though nothing else, not even a treaty guaranteeing 
the effective protection of life and property, the payment of 
the national debt and the return of the railways, will be re- 
garded by the self-constituted saviours of Mexico as an ade- 
quate substitute for the threatening shadow which Mexican 
officials under the Diaz regime carried in their hearts even 
under the brightest sunshine. 

That is the crux of the situation to-day. To ignore it is to 
operate with misconceptions and to waste time on bootless 
endeavours. Mexico' is now being summoned to fulfil certain 
international obligations, the binding force of which cannot 
be called in question. Her official spokesman acknowledges 
the duty and is prepared to discharge it. The obstacles in his 
way come from the United States and are wholly artificial. 
If the leading men in the southern Republic have, as behooved 
them, ascertained the true leanings of their foreign colleagues' 
minds they must feel that such international commitments as 
payment of interest on the national debt constitute but the 



180 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

merest fringe of the matter and that the problem which is 
being gradually pressed forward as essential, though it has not 
yet been officially formulated, may l^e described as the estab- 
lishment of such relations as will render the Mexican Govern- 
ment, irrespective of the party which may chance to be in 
power, permanently and readily accessible to whatever counsel 
the United States as ethical Mentor and self-constituted friend 
may feel prompted to vouchsafe. Diaz' expedient of the 
fantasma was accepted as satisfactory so long as its author's 
tenure of office lasted. But what is demanded to-day by 
many of those who are engaged in moulding public opinion in 
the United States is a stable arrangement which will outlive 
presidents and revolutions, commit the country for all time 
and warrant the State Department in Washington, to offer, and 
if need be press, its services upon its weak neighbour. Haiti 
is the model. 

An exhaustive discussion of the motives of this striving is 
beyond the scope of the present study. The writer's only con- 
tention is that it is a factor which ought to be fully covered 
by the surveys made of the international situation by those 
whose duty it is to keep a sharp look-out and recommend or 
adopt such measures as are called for. It would be a lack 
of candour on his part to pass over this far-reaching issue in 
silence or without due stress. For however completely Mexico 
may meet her present obligations the unavowed issue, which 
has not yet l^cn clearly mooted, is certain to crop up in un- 
familiar shapes, at times with vexatious accompaniments and 
possibly sinister consequences until it finally stands out with- 
out wrappage or disguise as a corollary of the latter-day 
doctrine sketched above, of the ethical guardianship of the 
superior political organism over the inferior. 

No arrangement less far-reaching than that can be expected 
to satisfy the aspirations of the money-seeking American 
groups which are bent on "saving" the southern Republic. 
And ^lexico, it may be added, feels that in this connection she 
stands for all Latin-America. This was one of the few issues 
of the international enigma which Carranza, short-sighted 
though he was in most other matters, thoroughly mastered and 



THE NEO-MONROE DOCTRINE 181 

clumsily strove to tackle. His sole claim to political vision 
reposed upon his correct reading of that phenomenon. And 
his dismal failure was due to the fatuous expedients with 
which he encountered it. 

A line of action becomes a policy only if it extend to far- 
off aims. And the attainment of these invariably requires 
labour, skill, time and the frequent readjustment of tactics to 
shifting conditions. Carranza devised such a rounded policy: 
he undertook not merely to liberate all Central America from 
the guardianship of the northern Mentor, but further to 
create a sort of lesser Monroe Doctrine there for the behoof 
of Latin-America without reference to the North American 
Republic. And he might as well have dipped a sieve into the 
ocean in the hope of catching the stars. 

Immunity from unwelcome guardianship was guaranteed 
by President Wilson when he laid it down in his message to 
Congress that the "governments of America stand, so' far as 
we are concerned, upon a footing of genuine equality and un- 
questioned independence."^" This pronouncement, had it been 
final, was the utmost that any central or south American Re- 
public could reasonably demand or expect. To set about im- 
proving it and propounding a brand new Latin- American Doc- 
trine on the very lines of the one which aroused Mexico's re 
sentment, and in open defiance of the great northern Repub- 
lic, was an enterprise which gives one the true measure of 
Carranza's political acumen. If, moved by the desire to pre- 
serve all that appears worth preserving in their national or 
racial customs, institutions and strivings as well as their inde- 
pendence and language, the Latin-American Republics could 
band themselves together for the attainment of these legitimate 
objects and for friendly emulation with the great people of the 
United States, they would have made as much headway as is 
possible or desirable in the direction struck out by Carranza. 

1° Message to Congress, December 7th, 1915. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Mr. Fall's Mexican Programme 

Mexico's international situation, apparently complex, is in 
reality superlatively simple. The primary causes of the seem- 
ing complications are the predominance of foreign capital in 
the country and its deliberately perturbing influence on Mexi- 
can politics. Every domestic problem, whether it be agrarian, 
labour, financial or constitutional, affects in some degree the 
outlander who thereupon complains, protests or petitions his 
Government for political help. And the recognised spokes- 
man of all foreign Governments and citizens whatsoever their 
nationality is the State Department in Washington, which 
automatically translates every such complaint and petition 
into terms of politics and therefore of strictly national inter- 
ests. Thus far has economic interpenetration of the Tsarist 
type forged ahead in the Southern Republic. All the capi- 
talistic interests now spread over Mexico have been gradu- 
ally compacted into a vast political lever which the United 
States Government is free to handle as it lists. Since the day ^ 
on which the British Foreign Office announced that it would 
take no steps in connection with the Mexican situation with- 
out previously consulting the United States Government " and 
followed up this announcement by requesting that Govern- 
ment to investigate the murder of the British subject. Benton, 
the State Department may be said to have had a free hand in 
Latin- America. And one cannot be blind to the fact that 
the policy which it has steadfastly pursued ever since bears 
all the characteristic features of intervention. Mexico's in- 
ternational relations, in a word, have been lowered to the level 
of the vassal State of Rajputana or of Afghanistan and all 

1 October 27. IQ13. 
'February 22, 1914. 

182 



MR. FALL'S MEXICAN PROGRAMME 183 

that is still lacking is a suitable formula to be recognised by 
international law. 

To-day the Mexican Republic stands alone. Those Euro- 
pean Governments whose nationals possess interests there have 
bartered these for the good will of the United States in other 
parts of the world. The hopes of Mexicans that a certain 
equilibrium of foreign strivings might be effected by methods 
akin to those inaugurated by Limantour were discouraged 
after the advent of Madero to power and have been totally 
shattered since the World War. 

Limantour was one of the first to realise that the economic 
expansion of the English-speaking element in Mexico tended 
directly towards the political subjection of that country to 
the United States, and by way of thwarting or staving off 
this consummation he encouraged English, French and Ger- 
man capital to seek investments in the Republic by the offer 
of particularly favourable conditions. It was under his aus- 
pices and with these attractions in prospect that Lord 
Cowdray took over important contracts for improving the 
ports of Vera Cruz, Tampico and Salina Cruz, and it was to 
the same set of conditions that French capital owed its pre- 
dominance in banking over that of other nations. That eco- 
nomic interpenetration which Limantour dreaded with all that 
it implies has since come to pass without evoking a word or 
a sign from apathetic Europe. And yet there was a moment 
when European diplomacy awoke from its lethargic sleep and 
a sudden transient impulse among the members of the diplo- 
matic corps in the Mexican capital lent colour to the belief 
that a joint telegram was about to be despatched by them 
to their respective Governments to the effect that the attitude 
of the United States toward Mexico was manifestly con- 
tributing to revolutionary movements. But that opportunity 
lapsed unutilised and there is now no Power but the United 
States ready to press with steady energy in the direction in 
which its economic interests and its politico-humanitarian aims 
are being systematically countered. 

The simple character of the issue between the United States 
and Mexico may be gathered from the trend of almost every 



184 MEXICO OX THE VERGE 

step taken by the former country since the disappearance of 
Porfirio Diaz from the pohtical stage. The ground taken by 
the former country may aptly be formulated as follows : As 
citizens of the United States have paramount interests in 
Mexico, the State Department is resolved to enforce such in- 
ternal conditions as will enable them to further those interests 
most advantageously. It is concerned only with its own citi- 
zens. And with this object in view it will present such pro- 
posals as it deems conducive to its attainment, and will enforce 
their acceptance by the most efficacious methods, appealing for 
its sanction not to the musty canons of international law but 
to "regional" agreements and the privileges of ethical guard- 
ianship. 

That was the attitude, that the maxim, of the Administration 
which refused to treat Victoriano Huerta as President, de- 
spite the recognition accorded to him by all other nations and 
the despatch of autograph letters from several European sov- 
ereigns welcoming his regime in cordial terms. And the 
refusal of recognition was followed by injunctions to the 
Mexican people respecting their choice of a chief of State. 
This was a striking instance of what Mexicans term the ex- 
ercise of obstructive power which destroys all security for 
internal organisation and opens the Mexican Republic to the 
uncongenial and erratic methods of North American poli- 
ticians. And against that evil there was no counterforce. 
Neither is there any at present, unless it be the moral support 
of the civilised world to which President Obregon silently but 
suasively appeals. 

It is easy to-day, and it was not difficult then, to perceive 
the moral drawbacks of Huerta's triumph or the sinister 
elements which he imported into the Government Df the Re- 
public. And nobody would be less disposed than the present 
writer to utter a word in favour of the usurper. But the case 
was one for Mexicans alone to deal with. It was for them 
to pass judgment on his person and his misdeeds. And under 
Obregon they rose up and with angry passion and firm resolve 
in their hearts clean.sed the country of the taint with which 
he had striven to tarnish it. 



MR. FALL'S MEXICAN PROGRAMME 185 

President Wilson's moral scruples on the subject of Huerta 
doubtless do him credit. His intentions too were, one must 
assume, admirable. But the foreign polity of a great people 
cannot be usefully carried on by mere scruples and intentions. 
Nor is that all. Even those admirers of Mr. Wilson who 
approve that particular act must admit that it is wholly out 
of keeping with other moves of his and also with the meas- 
ures and utterances of his successor. Mr. Wilson postulated 
as President of Mexico a man of acknowledged integrity of 
mind whose egotistic impulses and leanings would be over- 
borne by considerations of morality — in a word, a man who 
might be weighed in his own home-made scales and not found 
wanting. Mr. Hughes, on the other hand, is understood to 
be ready to recognise any Mexican Government whatsoever 
provided that it will sign his pet treaty and bow to the god 
of private property. It is obvious that to glaring inconsisten- 
cies such as these the ill-starred Mexican Government finds it 
difficult to attune itself. To have to harmonise its policy, its 
laws, its customs and its Constitution now to a Republican, 
now to a Democratic standard — for that is what it comes to — 
is an unenviable task and a dangerous ordeal. The Mexican 
Constitution of 1917 was not objected to by Mr. Lansing, who 
merely refused to brook confiscatory acts whatever their mo- 
tive or sanction. Mr. Colby went a step further, and the 
climax was reached by Mr. Hughes, who insists on a prelimi- 
nary treaty entailing a breach of the Mexican Constitution 
and of the President's solemn oath to respect it. And the 
incongruity of the situation is such that any unscrupulous 
Mexican who would sell his conscience and his country for 
the presidential arm-chair in the Palacio Nacional — one of 
those self-seeking recreants whom Mr. Wilson would have 
excommunicated and whom the Mexican people would con- 
demn to death — would be entitled to recognition at the hands 
of the United States Government to-day, while the man who 
may be described as Mexico's conscience, who occupies with 
credit and success the first post in the Republic and whose 
policy is founded upon justice, is curtly told that he cannot 
be recognised unless and until he commits acts which he and 



186 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

his fellow-countrymen regard as unpatriotic, immoral and 
criminal. 

It would be unfruitful to pass in review the numerous in- 
consistencies which have coloured the quick-changing Mexi- 
can policies of the State Department in Washington during 
the past ten years. But one cannot affect surprise at Mexi- 
cans' belief that the constant menace to peace in their Re- 
public since the fall of Diaz has had its principal source and 
centre in the United States. This conclusion which they sup- 
port by a forcible array of historical facts nowise implies a 
reflection on the American people, anv more than does the 
world-wide censure evoked by the high-handed methods pur- 
sued by certain American elements in Santo Domingo and 
Haiti. For it is not to be supposed that the American nation 
as a whole countenances every political stroke of its State 
Department or that the State Department applauds all the 
underhand machinations and propaganda tactics of those plu- 
tocratic groups and dim political figures who seek to sway 
its policy or to force its hand. The process which really takes 
place resembles, as M^e saw, that by which impressions made 
by outer objects on the senses are transformed into ideas. 
One has but to recall the recent course of events in Colombia, 
Haiti and Santo Domingo to realise how it comes to pass that 
the great democratic nation suddenly finds itself far ahead of 
its competitors in snug economic or favoured political situa- 
tions without having craved them and as a result of al:)errant 
manoeuvres which it never would have deliberately sanctioned. 
And it is gall and wormwood to Latin-Americans that they 
should be expected while paying the price of these acquisitions 
to join in the pa?ans that are being chaunted to the altruism 
of the great and generous American nation. 

One may sincerely congratulate the United States on its 
many grandiose achievements in the commercial and indus- 
trial spheres without approving all the devices by which it has 
risen to its present commanding position in the world or be- 
lauding its attitude towards Latin-.\mericans generally and 
Central Americans in particular. It requires a heroic eflfort, 
for example, to ascribe to ardent zeal for human improve- 



MR. FALL'S MEXICAN PROGRAMME 187 

ment or to any other altruistic aim the measures which Mr. 
Fall in his Report to the United States Senate desired to see 
adopted by his Government towards Mexico. One is hardly 
able even to conceive the nexus between them and what is still 
recognised as common justice and equity. To the unbiased 
mind the aim underlying them looks uncommonly like im- 
perialism of the kind which United States soldiers heroically 
fought and died to eradicate. 

No one accustomed to scrutinise carefully the records of 
international politics will find it feasible to associate Mr. 
Fall's Mexican Programme or Mr. Hughes' condition for 
recognition with disinterestedness, justice or even legitimate 
self-defence. They deliberately ignore the accepted rules, 
precedents and comity of international intercourse. Take for 
example Mr. Fall's demand for a clause in the projected treaty 
to the following effect: "Article 130 of the Constitution of 
1917 shall not apply to American missionaries, preachers, min- 
isters, teachers or American schools, nor to American periodi- 
cals, but American missionaries, ministers and teachers shall 
be allowed freely to enter, pass through and reside in Mex- 
ico, there to freely reside, preach, teach and write and 
hold property and conduct schools without interference by 
the authorities so long as such ministers, teachers or mis- 
sionaries do not participate in Mexican politics or revolu- 
tions." 

"This clause of the Constitution," we are told, "provides 
that no one except a Mexican by birth, may be a minister of 
any religious creed in Mexico; that neither in public or pri- 
vate shall such minister criticise the fundamental laws of the 
country, the authorities in particular or the Government in 
general. 

"That no periodical of a religious character shall comment 
upon any political affairs of the Nation, nor publish any in- 
formation regarding the acts of the authorities or of private 
individuals in so far as the latter have to do with public 
affairs. 

"That ministers are incapable legally of inheriting by will 
from ministers of the same creed, or from any private indi- 



188 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

viduals to whom they are not related by blood within the 
fourth degree, etc." ^ 

And "that Article 3 (prohibiting any minister or religious 
corporation establishing or directing schools of primary in- 
struction) shall not apply to any American teaching or con- 
ducting primary schools." * 

This same article further decrees that "the State legisla- 
tures shall have the exclusive power of determining the maxi- 
mum number of ministers of religious creeds, according to 
the needs of each locality." To one accustomed, as I have 
been, to see a much larger measure of liberty conferred upon 
ecclesiastical institutions and their judginent on such matters 
as the maximum number of ministers accepted as final, this 
limitation appears excessive. To me it seems unquestionable 
that liberty to practise their religious rites includes, or under 
normal conditions ought as a matter of logic and expediency 
to include, the right of determining the number of its min- 
isters, but I cannot conscientiously say that this principle has 
been followed or recognised by every civilised State or that 
its denial amounts to, or has ever been treated as, a violation 
of international law. What Mexico is doing in this respect 
is what other States have done in virtue of their sovereignty. 
And that being so, it is a curtailment of Mexico's sovereignty 
for a foreign State to insist upon its abrogation. 

Another provision of the same Article reads: "Only a Mex- 
ican by birth may be a minister of any religious creed in 
Mexico," and the demand is made by Mr. Fall and his friends 
for its repeal, at least to the extent that it "shall not apply to 
American missionaries, preachers, ministers, teachers or Amer- 
ican schools." There is no doubt that the steady and resist- 
less tendencies of the age run counter to such restrictions 
as that in countries where the relations between Church and 
State arc normal. Intolerance towards any form of religious 
worship as such is an anachronism to-day. And personally 
I disagree with those who, like M. Emile Combes, introduced 

' See Siib-Committec Print. Senate, 66th Congress, and Session. Af- 
fairs in Mexico, page 61 and following. 
* Sec the same Report, p. 62, 



MR. FALL'S MEXICAN PROGRAMME 189 

the anti-clerical measure in virtue of which Frenchmen and 
foreigners alike were taken by force from their monasteries, 
friaries, convents and houses and expelled, solely because they 
were members of religious congregations. But the Republic, 
as M. Combes assured me, was well within its rights, and his 
prophecy that no Government would protest was duly fulfilled. 
Now it should not be forgotten that among those who were 
thus forbidden to carry out their religious duties and were 
compelled to thus quit French soil and had to spend the re- 
mainder of their lives beyond the French borders were numer- 
ous foreigners, including Americans, Italians, British, Rus- 
sians and others. Sisters of Mercy too, whose self-denying 
activities challenged and received the grateful acknowledg- 
ment of the entire world, were among the victims of Combes' 
Draconian laws. In almost every country public sympathy 
was on the side of a considerable section of the forbidden 
congregations. But no State — not one — arrogated to itself 
the right of intervening or even protesting. The enactments 
were recognised as coming within the domain of domestic 
legislation and therefore beyond the purview of international 
law. 

Again, in Tsarist Russia not only was a foreign clergyman 
not permitted to discharge the functions of a minister of reli- 
gion,^ but he was absolutely debarred from crossing the Rus- 
sian frontiers under pain of immediate imprisonment. And 
several cases of summary punishment inflicted on foreign 
clergymen who violated this prohibition came to my notice. 
On two occasions I myself obtained special permission for 
the visit of a school-fellow of mine, and once his character 
was detected by a member of another church and he would have 
been arrested by the police had he not had his permit with 
him. Moreover, if a dissenting clergyman of Russian nation- 
ality ventured to convert or preach to a member of the Or- 
thodox faith or administer a sacrament to such or receive 
him into any Christian or other Church, he was liable to severe 

5 An exception was made in favour of three Dominican priests in the 
capital who were permitted to serve the foreign residents but not to preach 
in the language of the country, nor to convert the natives. 



190 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

punishment — either imprisonment or banishment to Siberia — 
which was invariably inflicted. Foreigners who married mem- 
bers of the Orthodox Church were not permitted to baptise 
or bring up their children in their own faith. And yet no 
Government ever intervened or protested. The grounds for 
this forbearance were the acknowledged right of a Sovereign 
State to legislate on all such matters according to what it con- 
siders to be the requirements of the nation or its good. The 
questions of expediency, of morality, of rational liberty, stand 
of course upon a different footing from the political and are 
governed by quite another set of considerations, but they leave 
intact the international law which accords to sovereign com- 
munities the faculty of dealing with all such subjects as they 
may think fit. And it is with this only that we are now con- 
cerned. 

In Mexico the relations between Church and State are ad- 
judged to be abnormal. Mexicans who, like Sefior Vera 
Estaiiol, are opposed to the rigorous anti-clerical laws at pres- 
ent in force in their country admit that the Catholic clergy 
there stand on a different footing towards the nation from 
that which it occupies in the United States, Great Britain or 
Belgium. It is a historic fact, he says, that it was the mem- 
bers of that body who successfully intrigued and negotiated 
for the invasion of the Republic in 1863. And at a much 
more recent date, writes Sefior Estafiol : "Taking advantage of 
the fact that the Constitution of 1857 did not expressly for- 
bid religious institutions as such to organise into political 
parties, the Catholic Church, immediately after the revolution 
of Madero, formed the 'Catholic Party,' w^th a view to tak- 
ing part in the elections of 1912. The party was supported 
by the clergy. All, from the highest to the lowest, availed 
themselves of religious offices, the confessional, the pulpit, 
doctrine, dogma, faith, superstition, and all the instruments 
at hand to gain proselytes. They worked on the consciences 
of the people, their friends and their servants, using the for- 
midable argument of eternal salvation, and when the ballot 
Ixixes were installed they placed aliout them standards bearing 
significant legends. On many of them, for example, were in- 



MR. FALL'S MEXICAN PROGRAMME 191 

scribed the words: 'Here you vote for God.' The Catholic 
Church thus attempted in this way to convert itself into a 
temporal power in rivalry to the State ; it endeavoured to re- 
establish the theocratic regime of the middle ages." ^ 

The wounds thus inflicted on the nation have, therefore, not 
yet had time to cicatrise and one can understand without ap- 
proving the animus which still subsists among the representa- 
tives of the nation towards the ministers of the Church. Add 
to this the aggravating circumstance that the supposed candi- 
date of the latter for the presidency of the Republic was a man 
who strove to rise to this position by the help of an official 
representative of the United States and whose unpopularity 
was and is as intense as it seems warranted. 

The Catholic faith is professed by the great bulk of the 
Mexican people. In some places, it is true, especially among 
Indian tribes, its rites and ceremonies have become associated 
with superstitions, illusions and various kinds of survivals 
of the indigenous religion,'^ but the solemn liturgy of the Cath- 
olic Church fits in better with the ingrained love of form, 
pomp, ceremony and symbolism which marks all classes of the 
people than the cold, cheerless worship of the dissenting bod- 
ies. Mexicans feel, therefore, that while the work of con- 
verting idolaters to Christianity may be meritorious from a 
Christian, and possibly also from a humanitarian, viewpoint, 
the attempts to lure pious Catholics from their own denomina- 
tion to another by stigmatising the former as a source of 
idolatrous errors is from every standpoint, including the 
Christian, reprehensible. And for that among other reasons 
it is keenly resented. When, therefore, well-meaning citizens 
of a foreign nation arrive to enjoy the hospitality of a coun- 
try for the purpose of effecting a breach and creating dissent 

^ Carransa and His Bolshevik Regime, by J. Vera Estanol, pp. 24-25. 

"^ The venerable Archbishop of Mexico in a pastoral letter recently con- 
demned several superstitious practices such as the picturesque Monday 
pilgrimages to the town in which St. Nicholas of Bari is venerated, the 
habit of setting the image of St. Anthony on its head and hiding it in a 
sequestered spot in the house with the object of finding stolen property 
and the burning of three tallow candles on a triangular brick before which 
ladies desirous of retaining or regaining the love of their husbands or 
bridegrooms pray for half an hour, and various others. See El Universal, 
September 20th, 1920. 



192 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

and dissension among its inhabitants by turning some of them 
against the faith of their fathers, it is natural that an influ- 
ential body of the people should look askance upon the cru- 
saders while admitting that they are prompted by the human- 
est intentions, and that the Government, however cordially it 
might S)Tnpathise with free religious discussion in principle, 
should hesitate as a matter of expediency to encourage the mil- 
itant Christian apostles by conferring on them extraordinary 
privileges. It was on this and cognate grounds that Tsarist 
Russia kept out all religious proselytisers and that Austria 
systematically discouraged them. These motives acquire a 
noteworthy increase of momentum when, as in the case of 
Mexico, whose peoples have been long kept divided from each 
other and are only now being compacted in one homogeneous 
nation by General Obregon, religion and language happen to be 
among the main elements that cement their inchoate union. In- 
tellectually and morally too this aggressive religious spirit, ow- 
ing to the fierce controversies which it engenders, is at times a 
potent force in throwing veracity, honesty and fraternity into 
the background. Nowhere are the religious emotions and be- 
liefs less independent of the traditional social surroundings 
with which history has associated them than in countries like 
Mexico, where the bulk of the people is unsophisticated and 
incapable of applying its reason to discussions of dogma and 
liturgy. Whatever else may be predicated of the pious Mexi- 
can Catholic, it cannot be gainsaid that his attachment to his 
creed — which generally underlies his respect for political au- 
thority — has its source in a yearning for a higher and better 
life and a disinterested striving to attain that. 

There is, however, another side to all this which is com- 
monly lost sight of. The American dissenting minister is 
not merely a fisher for souls. He is at the same time by the 
force of things and without dclil:>erate effort on his part a 
political missionary. He cannot be less. His schools and 
other various institutions for the young of both sexes, in Mex- 
ico as in the United States, are seminaries in which the subtle 
elements that make up a child's outlook on the world are com- 
pacted into a whole and to that extent they are political also. 



MR. FALL'S MEXICAN PROGRAMME 193 

It is impossible that they should wholly fail to be that. And 
the results are alleged to be generally associated with a marked 
lessening of respect for, and attachment to, native institu- 
tions. It is Christianity minus Catholicism and plus Ameri- 
canism. One might term the system indirect propaganda for 
the "higher civilisation" as against the "lower." In China 
too there are excellent American schools which turn out Amer- 
icanised Chinamen who look down upon their own traditions, 
religions and philosophies, receive positions of trust in various 
branches of the Administration and doubtless justify the con- 
fidence placed in them by their superiors. But these officials 
are almost all pro- American in politics, look to the United 
States for guidance as well as help and are said to constitute 
a dissolvent force In the national organism. In Macedonia 
before the war a like phenomenon confronted the visitor at 
every hand's turn. The Macedonians speak a dialect which 
is partly Serb and partly Bulgar, so that even expert philolo- 
gists could never be sure to which of the two ethnic branches 
the population really belonged. In every case It was the cler- 
gyman or the schoolmaster who decided the question practi- 
cally. Wherever there was a Bulgar school, subsidised by the 
Government at Sofia, the scholars, their parents and the entire 
neighbourhood were Bulgars. If the priest and the teacher 
chanced to be Serbs, paid by the Belgrade Government, the 
people who resided In the district of which the Church and 
the school were the centre eagerly claimed Serb nationality. 
Hence the keen competition of both these Governments for 
Turkish permits to open schools and churches of their re- 
spective creeds and tongues and nationalities. 

Now If there is one thing more than another of which 
Mexicans stand in need to-day it Is institutions capable of 
strengthening their nationality, already weakened by the 
steady Inroad of American customs, business methods, cine- 
mas, journalism and coinage. There Is hardly enough reli- 
gion in the country to support several competing denomina- 
tions. Everything that tends to loosen the ties of nationality 
they believe to be a danger, even though It be attended with 
undoubted material advantages, because it deadens and ulti- 



194 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

mately kills the soul of the people. And President Obregon 
personally realises this as thoroughly as any of his fellow- 
countrymen. 

To bestow upon foreigners, therefore, the right of in- 
creasing at will the numl^er of lines of cleavage which already 
keep Mexicans apart is decidedly and necessarily unpopular. 
But when such a demand is put forth as a special right of 
North Americans and is to be accompanied with certain privi- 
leges legally denied to Mexicans, the consequences are bound 
to be untoward. For the foreigner is asking for a lever which 
cannot be pressed without shaking the foundations of the 
social and political fabric. It is not, therefore, the Consti- 
tution which will generate discontent and feuds, but such ex- 
ceptions to it as these which Mr. Fall and his influential sup- 
porters are insisting upon introducing. 

Such is the light in which many Mexicans envisage this un- 
precedented demand. In France and Russia no such claims 
have ever been advanced by any of the Governments inter- 
ested in the attainment by their nationals of religious freedom. 
The foreigners were told by their respective Governments to 
obey the law. If international law or custom had given them 
a pretext however frail for claiming such a far-ranging license, 
they would have utilised it without hesitation or delay. As 
an act of courtesy the Governments of both those States ac- 
corded permission to a few foreign clergymen of the Catholic 
Church to preach to, and hear the confessions of, the per- 
sonnel of the diplomatic corps and the foreign residents and 
in their respective tongues which are not those of the people, 
but forbade them under severe penalties to preach or adminis- 
ter sacraments to the natives. And if Mexico be summoned 
to make more far-reaching concessions it can only be, her 
statesmen argue, because her sovereignty is not recognised by 
the United States to the full extent and that a new and west- 
ern version of international law is being developed by means 
of freshly established precedents, of which the Central as the 
weaker States of the new Continent are to be the first victims. 
This conclusion seems incontrovertible. Undue pressure is 
undoubtedly being employed to obtain a privilege, the obvious 



MR. FALL'S MEXICAN PROGRAMME 195 

effect of which would be to impair the international status of 
Mexico and establish claims which have no parallel in the 
history of intercourse among nations. In plain terms the con- 
tention is being implicitly advanced that there are two types 
of political communities on the new Continent to-day, the 
sovereign and the semi-sovereign, and that the United States 
alone belongs to the former. This would seem to be the real 
issue as revealed in the demand for special proselytising privi- 
leges for the various dissenting bodies of that Republic. 

Another aspect of this unprecedented claim is revealed by 
its effects on the domestic policy of the country. Everybody 
understands that to grant to foreign clergymen, however lofty 
their purpose, the faculty to do in Mexico what the natives 
are debarred by law from doing would be to provoke a de- 
plorable conflict between the latter and the lawfully consti- 
tuted Government. It would be an indirect incitement to 
such unmeasured opposition as has hitherto been customary 
in the country. And in Mexico that is rebellion. In this case 
it would be rebellion with a good cause backed up by encour- 
agement and moral help, to be followed possibly by military 
aid, from outside. In a word, it might well become a modifi- 
cation in non-essentials of the foreign intervention of 1863. 
In that year it was chiefly the Mexican Catholic clergy who 
desired and brought about the invasion of the country by 
foreigners and undertook to support it by a native rebellion. 
To-day it is a foreign Government which, doubtless with ex- 
cellent intentions but defective data and warped judgment, 
would be preparing the soil for a rebellion and civil war of 
the worst kind by exacting privileges for its nationals which 
the Mexican State withholds from its own citizens. From 
whatever angle of vision, therefore, one contemplates the mat- 
ter, it is tantamount to interference with the domestic policy 
of a sovereign State. The Government of the Republic of 
Mexico is constrained by this demand to choose between the 
two horns of a ruinous dilemma. By compliance it would 
antagonise a powerful body of opinion at home and spread 
discontent throughout the land; and by refusal it would pro- 
voke the enmity of a neighbouring Government which is now 



196 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

qualifying for the "rightful leadership among the sovereign 
nations of the world." " 

Another of the recommendations made by Mr. Fall's Sub- 
Committee reads as follows: "That article 33 of said consti- 
tution, providing that 'The Executive shall have the exclusive 
right to expel from the Republic forthwith and without judi- 
cial process any foreigner whose presence he may deem inex- 
pedient,' shall not apply to American citizens who shall, when 
they so demand, have access to their consulate or consular 
agent or diplomatic representative and have the right to avail 
themselves of the assistance of such officials, and until after 
due judicial proceedings upon application of such Ameri- 
can." 

This demand, in perfect keeping with the foregoing, is no 
less exorbitant than those. From none of the sovereign States 
of the world has it ever been preferred, for the conclusive rea- 
son that there is no international law, no international prece- 
dent, which can be appealed to in its favour. It is wholly 
arbitrary and amounts to an encroachment on the sovereign 
rights of the Mexican State. The only grounds which Ameri- 
can politicians can adduce in support of it is that the United 
States has adopted trial before deportation. That was the 
result of an act of its sovereign will. It is free to repeal that 
procedure to-morrow and no foreign State would be war- 
ranted in uttering a protest or complaint. Why then should 
Mexico be forced against her wiW to follow the example of 
her powerful neighbour? In virtue of what general princi- 
ple? Is it that Mexico must be guided by the United States 
in her domestic legislation and deprived of the exercise of her 
sovereign rights? If not, there is no argument that will bear 
scrutiny. 

Will it be maintained that Mexico must not be allowed to 
do what France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia and Austria 
have done and still do without provoking the faintest protest 
from the United States ? Is there to be a special international 

* President Hardinfsfs words uttered in his address to the District of 
Columbia Bankers' Association on April 26th. Cf. New York Times, 
April 27\.h, 1921. 



MR. FALL'S MEXICAN PROGRAMME 197 

law created for Central America, a law restrictive in its char- 
acter and different from that of other nations? And if so, 
what right can one invoke in support of the contention? 

The Mexican Government will continue to treat all for- 
eign citizens whose presence in the Republic is undesirable as 
the French democratic Republic treats them, and in doing so 
reckons upon the courteous forbearance of the civilised 
world. 

In France and other countries a foreign citizen whose pres- 
ence in the land is deemed harmful can be deported with- 
out trial. As recently as the year 19 19 a well-known and 
highly respected British subject named Dell, who had lived 
several years in France, was the correspondent of the great 
English newspaper The Manchester Guardian, and had fre- 
quently testified his affection for that country, was expelled. 
And he was not given a trial. Nobody in England, however, 
asked for a repeal of that French law. Nobody protested be- 
cause he was expelled without trial. 

Before the war several foreign correspondents were ex- 
pelled from France in the same summary manner. Among 
them was Herr Frischauer, correspondent of the Vienna jour- 
nal Neue Freie Presse. It was a matter of common knowl- 
edge that this measure was adopted under a mistaken assump- 
tion. Herr Frischauer was a friend of M. Clemenceau. And 
yet the persons expelled were not allowed to return for some 
years and only when their influential French friends had in- 
terceded for them and shown that they had done nothing 
whatever to merit expulsion. Frischauer was received back 
with open arms by Clemenceau, with whom he was on inti- 
mate terms. As lately as September 192 1 a renowned scholar 
of the highest character, a foreigner against whom nothing 
reprehensible has ever been alleged and in whose favour the 
British press has uplifted its voice, was expelled from England 
together with his wife without any explanation. One of the 
principal evening journals of London writes : "We published 
yesterday a letter from Dr. Oscar Levy, the well-known editor 
of the English edition of the works of Nietzsche, in which he 
Stated that he and his wife are being expelled from this coun- 



ts 



198 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

try by the Home Office, which derives this power of expulsion 
from the Ahens Restriction Act of 1919. We protested 
strongly against the general principles of that measure when it 
was passing through Parliament, for we regarded it as con- 
trary to all the best traditions of this country. We had no 
idea, however, that it would be used to exclude from Great 
Britain a scholar of distinction who has resided here for 
nearly thirty years, and who has used his scholarship for the 
benefit of Englishmen. Some explanation is most clearly 
needed from the Home Office of the reasons for so drastic 
and extraordinary a decision." ' 

But no explanation has been or will be offered, and Dr. 
Levy's Government has no right to demand any. 

That President Harding's intentions are lofty is evidenced 
by his description of America's high ideals which he set be- 
fore American bankers. "I want America to stop and turn 
its face forward not only for the achievements which we may 
bring ourselves, but also that we may play our part in show- 
ing the world the way to a righteous settlement." *° 

It is not easy to discern the quality which is commonly un- 
derstood as righteousness in a policy which directly under- 
mines the foundations of a good, sound Government for the 
sake of enabling non-Catholic sects to snatch a few stray sheep 
from the Catholic fold. It is equally hard to understand by 
what order of considerations the urgency and peremptory 
necessity of such a measure can be brought home to the un- 
biased mind. And yet Mexicans were seriously told that 
unless General Obregon violates the Constitution for the pur- 
pose of thus setting foreigners above his own fellow-coun- 
trymen, the Republic of which he is the recognised chief will 
be declared to be no Government and the State to be beyond 
the pale of international law, in spite of the dissent of nupier- 
ous other sovereign States without whose acquiescence there 
is no international law. Such a declaration would then confer 
upon the United States the right to invade Mexico and "pro- 

» IVfstmittster Gazette, T4th September, 1021, 

10 Extract from his speech to the Rankers' Association. 



MR. FALL'S MEXICAN PROGRAMME 199 

tect" its own citizens there. Violation of the Constitution and 
of his oath to uphold it are, therefore, the two offences which 
General Obregon is enjoined to commit for the behoof of reli- 
gious bodies in the United States under pain of seeing the 
territory of the Republic violated by a "police force" sent by 
the Administration which is "showing the world the way to a 
righteous settlement." 

That procedure may be defensible on grounds not yet made 
known to the world, but it is fair to conjecture that these 
grounds will deserve some other name than righteousness. 
The people of the United States, who have the instinct of 
righteousness without the self-complacency which character- 
ises its political professors, will regret to learn the interpre- 
tation which the impartial world is thus forced to put on the 
acts of the present Administration. The powerful journalis- 
tic articles which have appeared in Spain ^^ offer a striking 
example of this. All admirers of the great American people 
will be unpleasantly affected by such comments as Deputy 
Barcia makes on the United States policy : "There are widely 
known reasons," he writes, "for affirming that the United 
States is forging ahead with hollow insincerity and making 
ready for the complete domination of the Continent across 
the Atlantic." ^^ Assuredly it is not the people of the United 
States who deserve this bitter reproach. 

On the other hand one can readily imagine the feelings of 
thinking Mexicans when their President is summoned by the 
United States Government to become a perjurer and a violater 
of the Constitution in order to get recognition, and by the oil 
companies to obey the Constitution which they say forbids him 
to diminish their present revenues by heavy taxation! His 
conduct and that of his fellow-countrymen are thus being care- 
fully framed for them; all that they have to do is to pursue 
it and enable a few Republican politicians and their plutocratic 
allies to inaugurate their rightful leadership among the sover- 
eign nations of the world. Experhnentum in corpore vilu 

^'^ In such press organs as El Debate, El Tiempo, La Lihertad, etc. 
12 La Lihertad, nth May, 1921. 



200 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

The Mexican people are among the last to lay a claim to spe- 
cial righteousness and among the first to allow that claim — 
were it deserved — by the politicians of the United States, but 
they do insist on retaining their sovereignty and are not will- 
ing to barter that even for righteousness' sake. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Recognition by Treaty 

In theory the matters in dispute between the foreign and 
the Mexican peoples seem simple enough and capable of being 
readily adjusted. In reality the settlement demanded by the 
advocates of the "cleaning-up" process would cut deep into the 
politico-social ordering of the Southern Republic with incal- 
culable consequences to the parties immediately concerned and 
a disquieting prospect for the remainder. All that the United 
States demands officially, for itself and for the European peo- 
ples the furtherance of whose interests is entrusted to its care, 
is that the lives, properties and rights of foreigners in Mexico 
shall be adequately protected in the future and that the losses 
which they sustained during the revolutionary upheaval shall 
be made good. Than this nothing could be fairer, and Mex- 
ico, in the person of her President, recognises the obligation 
and is firmly minded to discharge it without avoidable delay. 
If that were all, the outlook would indeed be roseate. But 
as a statement of the issue it is sadly incomplete. There are 
cross currents beneath the surface which must be reckoned 
with and forms to be observed which are almost as important 
as the substance. And these complicate the situation con- 
siderably. 

«-- Two movements are at present afoot in the United States 
which are carefully kept sundered there but are merged to- 
gether in the minds of Mexicans apprehensive of what the 
morrow may bring. The object of one is the re-establish- 
ment of official and friendly intercourse between the two Re- 
publics, Mexico redressing her neighbour's grievances and 
the State Department in Washington recognising President 
Obregon's government. The ultimate goal of the other is 
much more comprehensive: it includes a complete rearrange- 
ment of the two countries' reciprocal relations along the lines 

201 



202 MEXICO OX THE VERGE 

traced by the United States Senate for Cuba. And in the 
proposed treaty of commerce and amity Mexican statesmen 
discern the tell-tale nexus between the two. They apprehend 
that the condition officially put forward which is essentially 
irrelevant to the question of recognition is but the prelude to 
the unofficial scheme of which it vaguely sounds the keynote. 
The function of the one is to furnish the frame-work, that 
of the other to complete the fabric. Form plays an appre- 
ciable role in the first, substance monopolises the second. In- 
ternational law should supply the motive power for recogni- 
tion ; public opinion, or what passes muster for that, will pro- 
vide the stimulus for Cubanisation. The United States Gov- 
ernment confines itself to the actual in time and to the Mexi- 
can in space, whereas the creators of public sentiment looking 
further ahead in both are formulating a modus vivcndi for the 
future and for Latin-America generally. State sovereignty 
and its correlate duties towards the unhappy family of nations 
are the only postulates of the diplomatists. 

A specific politico-economic object, commonly known as the 
Cuban standard, floats before the imagination of an influen- 
tial group of American business men and politicians. They 
maintain that for the United States Government to protect 
the rights of its citizens is a duty. With the oil companies, 
however, the rearrangement of reciprocal intercourse is an 
appetite and a somewhat voracious one. And against appe- 
tites as against passions there are no arguments that carry. 
To fall in with the legitimate claims of the United States 
Government is President Obregon's fixed resolve. To help, 
however indirectly, build up by a punitive treaty a bridge be- 
tween those claims and Cubanisation is repugnant to him per- 
.sonally and l^eyond his powers constitutionally.//^ 

Such is the light in which the present controversy is viewed 
by Mexican statesmen. 

Tt is taken fnr granted bv manv that the recognition of 
the Obregon regime is the one thing necessary and that every- 
thing else will be added to that, more or less atitomntically. 
As a matter of fact, the real work planned by .American re- 
formers, which consists in the splicing of the severed strands 



RECOGNITION BY TREATY 203 

of international intercourse, will not commence until recogni- 
tion has been vouchsafed, and it is doubtful whether it will 
entirely end before much in Mexico that seems firmly rooted 
to-day will have been plucked out of the political soil to make 
room for something wholly different. One may recognise this 
eventuality without characterising the motives of those who 
are striving to realise it. Their standards are said to be 
North American and their ideals have nought in common with 
those of the people whom they would fain "regenerate." Car- 
ranza perceived the existence and gauged the strength of this 
inchoate process which was silently going forward in his time, 
but his clumsy exertions which, not contented with damming it, 
aimed at starting a counter-current throughout Latin-Amer- 
ica only intensified its force. 

In Mexico the ultimate aim of the scheming outsiders is 
believed to be the Americanisation of the Latin races. This, 
however, must not be taken to connote a form of that morbid 
land hunger which is now driving so many European States 
to the brink of ruin, nor to be deliberate on the part of the 
responsible statesmen. Territorial expansion is not one of 
the impelling forces of the people of the United States to-day, 
nor indeed will it be the mainspring of the poHcy of any coun- 
try whose destinies are controlled by a statesman of vision. 
Even Tsarist Russia, when well advised, discarded it. The 
keynote of the late Count Witte's Far Eastern line of action 
was gradual, economic interpenetration without violence or 
annexation. And the business men of the great American 
Republic to-day are alive to the advantages of preferential eco- 
nomic usufruct and also to the drawbacks attending the forci- 
ble annexation of a country abounding in natural resources 
and inhabited by a people passionately fond of liberty. 

To-day Count Witte's theory of economic interpenetration 
is become a maxim of international politics. It is translated 
into American by the term Cubanisation and into Mexican 
Spanish by the word protectorate or "ethical guardianship." 
Those American statesmen, captains of industry and enter- 
prising pioneers whose wealth or reputations depend upon the 
degree to which Mexican conditions are made to approach 



204 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

their ideal, are penetrated with the desire that no redress of 
grievances, no compensation for past wrongs, no guarantee of 
present rights should be accepted as adequate. They are also, 
however, aware that to Cubanise Mexico without more ado 
would be to fly in the face of public sentiment in the United 
States, whose people is always actuated by a dominant sense 
of fair play. Hence they have reduced their minimum demands 
to a treaty of amity and have raised those of the Government 
by insisting on this. That was the utmost which Mr. Hughes 
consented to accept as a prerequisite to recognition. But it is 
enough for the purpose of driving a wedge between the two 
States. An instrument of that kind comprehensively drafted 
would bind present and future Mexican Governments, fix their 
foreign policy for all time, keep them within narrow limits 
and confer upon the State Department in Washington the right 
to supervise the execution of the compact by forewarnings 
and advice as well as by vetoes and protests and to enforce it 
when requisite by military and naval measures. They urge 
that pronouncements issued by native institutions, whether by 
Congress or the Supreme Court, however solemn and emphatic, 
lack the element of stability inasmuch as being one-sided they 
might be rescinded and reversed as easily as they were made. 

This argument is identical with that employed by certain 
members of the German Government during the war against 
the restitution of Belgium to her former independent status 
It was alleged that recent history had shown that no promises 
of neutrality made by Belgium could be trusted and that the 
only guarantees which would adequately reassure the German 
people must be embodied in a treaty imposing limitations upon 
the sovereignty of the Belgian realm. The answer made by 
allied diplomacy was that guarantees which give absolute cer- 
titude are not attainable in politics and it was emphasised by 
the energy with which the allied armies prosecuted the war. 

Now the politicians and business men who carried tlieir 
treaty scheme and had it adopted by the State Department 
were well aware that, as it stood. President Obregon neither 
could nor would comply with the demaiid to agree to it. And 
conversant as they arc with Mexican affairs they clearly under- 



RECOGNITION BY TREATY 205 

stood the nature of the consequences to which his refusal 
would open the door. And those dire consequences, it is 
argued, are far from being unwelcome to them. 

Thus in one of its aspects the present divergence between! 
the two Governments appears to hinge upon a mere matter 
of form : whether recognition should be accorded before or 
after the settlement of outstanding scores. And for form, 
as such, English-speaking peoples, especially those who dwell 
on the western shores of the Atlantic, feel and exhibit scant 
respect. The Mexicans, on the contrary, are wont to set it 
almost on the same level as substance and occasionally higher 
still. The forms and symbols which affect national dignity, 
for example, are for them things just as real as national 
property and are valued and cherished as highly. But the 
average American official who holds mere forms in contempt 
has no understanding of the Mexican's national dignity and 
cannot bring himself to believe that the Mexican has any. 
And this is a fruitful source of misunderstanding. But the 
roots of the matter lie much deeper. 

In this case form is an integral part of the substance and 
the stakes played for include much more than a question of 
procedure or preference. The arguments that favour a writ- 
ten covenant are forcible. It appears quite reasonable that 
the Southern Republic should have a commercial treaty with 
its great northern neighbour — not necessarily, however, a 
treaty conferring special privileges on its great sister — seeing 
that nowadays all States are linked together with all other 
States by compacts of this nature and none of them feels 
that its interests are damaged, its dignity wounded or even 
its freedom of action inconveniently hampered thereby. Why 
then, it is asked, should Mexico shrink from binding herself 
by a formal compact of that harmless nature? Is her national 
dignity specifically different from that of every other nation? 
Is her sensitiveness a morbid symptom or a hollow pretext? 
The answer is that it is neither. Mexico has no rooted repug- 
nance to discuss the terms of a commercial treaty unless it 
be the prelude to economic interpenetration. What she de- 
clines is a process of bargaining for recognition. And her 



206 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

objections are derived from international usage, from a deep- 
rooted sentiment — over-developed it may be, but very real, 
which the average foreigner is unable to discern or unwilling 
to allow for — and from an intense solicitude to preserve unim- 
paired her attributes of sovereignty which in this case are 
demonstrably at stake. 

These considerations, misgivings or precautions, trivial 
though they may appear to the large-hearted American, carry 
great weight with the Mexican who realises the forlorn con- 
dition of his country. Mexico to-day stands alone in the 
world, isolated and impoverished. She has no powerful friend 
on the globe and the kind of friendship which is within her 
reach she instinctively eschews. Her own people are not yet 
sufficiently united to present a compact front to outsiders 
so long as the dispute is diplomatic. Many of her distin- 
guished citizens are become frondeurs who mistake a party 
for their country and add to the difficulties of their Govern- 
ment. Her one strong man is exerting himself untiringly 
to clear away the ruins left by the subversive waves of ten 
years' successive revolutions. But as yet he lacks an ade- 
quate staff of competent helpers. The funds needed for ur- 
gent internal reforms are not sufficient. France and Britain, 
who would gladly succour him financially, morally, politically, 
are either themselves without the means or else they do not 
venture to take independent action in the matter lest they 
should offend the United States on whose good will they are 
dependent elsewhere. The Republics of Latin-America fail 
to see that Mexico's cause is their own. Thus Mexico, ex- 
hausted economically and morally, stands alone face to face 
with the greatest Power on the globe. President Obregon 
has nought to rely upon, therefore, but moral force to stay or 
check that mighty influence w^hich tends to impress a new 
course upon the current of Mexico's national life. He pre- 
sumably draws from the history of Mexico's past relations 
with the United States warnings and forebodings which cast 
a deep shadow over his picture of their future friendly inter- 
course. Accordingly he deems it to be his duty to withstand 
such pressure brought to bear upon him as would jeopardise 



RECOGNITION BY TREATY 207 

the sovereignty of the Republic. To accuse him of criminal 
stubbornness for this attitude is like classifying as ferocious 
a certain domestic animal on the ground that it defends itself 
desperately when attacked. It is not surprising that a Mexi- 
can in his position should regard the violent imposition of a 
treaty of friendship as a contradiction in terms. He feels the 
force of the Russian saying that "you cannot make yourself 
loved by coercion." 

^ The recognition of one Government by another is hardly 
more than an implicit admission that the administration recog- 
nised does really represent the country, is authorised to act in 
its name and can be approached and dealt with as its trustee 
and mouthpiece. The theory, accepted and acted upon by 
other nations, is confirmed by international precedent. >;;>' 
Treaties are negotiated only with recognised Governments and y/ 
this principle is so rigorously upheld that even when one of 
the countries has been vanquished in battle by the other recog- 
nition invariably precedes treaty-making. The two are never 
simultaneous and to endeavour to make them so is an unwar- 
ranted innovation. In all such cases the terms of the covenant 
are discussed on their intrinsic merits exclusively, and to en- 
force them as a condition of recognition is therefore an 
anomaly. Whether Obregon's Government is entitled to be 
regarded as the legal repository of valid authority in the Mex- 
ican Republic depends upon its relations to the Mexican 
nation, not upon its liabilities, and still less upon its readiness 
to accept a compact regulating its future behaviour. In the 
history of diplomacy which supplies precedents of international 
law there is no example of recognition being confounded with 
the settlement, nor even the express acknowledgment, of claims 
made by the recognising State. Still less does it presuppose 
that a treaty of friendship has been concluded or agreed upon 
by the two. To assume the contrary is to ignore the rules 
that govern international relations and to forget tlie bearings 
of, recent events. 

■^ President Obregon's objections to .a preliminary treaty are 
many and convincing. One of them is that it is a slightly 
disguised form of purchase money paid for recognition. In- 



208 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

sistence upon it by the United States would be evidence that 
the Government which the Mexican people regard as the re- 
pository of the sovereign rights of the Republic cannot be 
trusted even for a brief span of time. And true or false, 
nothing could well be more humiliating. Those manifestly 
are also the views taken by a number of sovereign States — 
among them Italy, Japan, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the 
Argentine — which have already given recognition to the 
Obregon Administration in accordance with international 
usage. They implicitly hold that Mexico's differences with 
foreign countries can best be adjusted by diplomatic methods 
after recognition. And it is hardly too much to assert that 
Britain and France would like^vise have recognised President 
Obregon if considerations of political expediency had not im- 
pelled them to refrain from weakening Washington's influ- 
ence in Mexico by countering or checking her policy there, even 
when that policy is a flat negation of their economic interests.^ 

Lastly, the advocates of unconditional recognition point out 
that former Mexican Administrations much less promising 
than that of General Obregon received recognition de facto 
and dc jure without any preliminary compact. That was the 
experience of the Carranza Government. "Why," it is asked, 
"should the actual President with whom the exercise of jus- 
tice is the result not of an effort but of an inborn instinct be 
treated worse than his predecessor of whom Americans af- 
firmed that injustice had become almost a second nature? 
Surely the ruler to whose moral sense of fairness all his 
experience, thoughts and motions are set and referred as to 
a fixed standard should be allowed to share at the very least 
the same degree of trust as the 'artful dodger' between whose 
words and deeds there often yawned an impassable abyss. It 
is a waste of energy' to knock at an open door and a damag- 
ing blunder to use force to compel a friendly Government to 
do what it is effecting voluntarily. Nor is it worldly wise to 
strive to divest of his prestige in the eyes of the nation the 
one man who is able and willing to satisfy the equitable de- 
mands of Mexico's creditors and to realise the hopes of her 
well-wishers," 



RECOGNITION BY TREATY 209 

No imaginative observer touched with even a vague sense 
of the tragic elements in Obregon's position, as he crosses 
the national stage, can help hoping that he at least will be 
allowed to play his part without being baulked by sticklers 
for monopolies and greedy fortune-hunters. The retrospec- 
tive mind, evoking the figure of the petted and spoiled Car- 
ranza, recoils from the thought that foreign Governments 
should whet the edge of the irony of circumstance by put- 
ting a premium on bad faith and punishing plain dealing. 

But it is further urged that, independently of the personal 
deserts of Mexico's First Citizen, the interests and claims of 
the three foreign Governments postulate unconditional recog- 
nition. For if those demands are to be satisfied fully and in 
amicable fashion, common sense prescribes that the ways and 
means be left to the one man whose office, experience, sense 
of justice, tact and popularity qualify him to establish such 
internal conditions as alone can render the settlement possible. 
If the unprecedented stand be taken and the dangerous prin- 
ciple enforced that not only the results aimed at but also the 
means of attaining them ought to be outlined by a foreign 
power, then the prospect changes and the issue turns upon 
Mexico's sovereign rights. And before any such interna- 
tional compact can be imposed upon President Obregon, in- 
ternal troubles may be generated which must be quelled by 
force, and ultimately by force from outside. This would con- 
front both parties with a factor of unknown character and 
magnitude which might stand for anything from local revolts 
to widespread resistance against any and every national insti- 
tution that had countenanced such external interference. And 
the latter state of Mexico might be worse than the former. 
Would her neighbours and creditors appreciably benefit by this 
upheaval? They would be creating the situation which they 
profess to apprehend. For if that is not the consummation 
wished for it certainly is the one that will be precipitated. , 

■^ The insistence of the United States Government on a pre- y^ 
liminary treaty means that recognition on the American Con- 
tinent is become something wholly different from what it has 
been hitherto and still is in the remainder of the world to-day. 



210 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

In international law it is no more than an implicit acknowl- 
edgment by one State that another State has a government 
which duly represents it and exercises legal and valid author- 
ity within its frontiers. That and nothing more/^Now this 
condition which is necessary and adequate has a purely domes- 
tic character. So true is this that even the all-powerful dis- 
solvent of war itself does not affect it. Take a striking ex- 
ample. The Emperor Franz Josef died before the armistice, 
yet his successor was tacitly recognised as the ruler of Austria- 
Hungary even by his enemies who discussed peace proposals 
with his envoy, Prince Sixtus, and peace conditions with the 
delegates whom he sent to St. Germain. They did not insist 
upon a treaty as a prerequisite to recognition, but only as a 
condition of peace. After all, a State usually has a much 
longer life than any of its governments and it continues to 
subsist after a regime is overthrown. But once it establishes 
a government which is not the occasion of civil war, its neigh- 
bours if they desire to hold intercourse with it must 
acknowledge it without laying down conditions of their own 
making. 

Take a case in point. Great Britain and Russia are still 
at loggerheads on the matter of the latter's debts, the damages 
which her revolution caused to British capitalists and the com- 
pensation owing to British subjects. For in Bolshevist Rus- 
sia the rights of private property and free trading have been 
continually and systematically trampled under foot. Not- 
withstanding this, however, and despite other more incriminat- 
ing counts in the indictment, Great Britain has recognised the 
Bolshevist regime as the dc facto Government of Russia. 
And it would have done this over two years ago if Mr. Lloyd 
George had had his way. The Court of Appeals in England 
has recently ruled ^ that in virtue of that recognition all acts 
of the Soviet Government performed before, as well as after, 
the signing of the trade agreement are outside the jurisdiction 
of British Courts as being the acts of a Sovereign Govern- 
ment.' Here, then, recognition was given because the Bol- 

^ On May 12th, 1921. 
' Ibidem. 



RECOGNITION BY TREATY 211 

shevist Administration, however obnoxious it might be to the 
British people, was accepted as the outward expression of the 
sovereignty of the State and as the sole agency by which the 
sovereign powers of the State are exercised. That is the sig- 
nificance of the act. Whether in the case of the Bolshevist 
Government recognition can also be justified as expedient or 
moral, is a question which does not concern us here. The 
essence of the matter lies in the circumstance that Russia's 
debts to Great Britain, her liability for damages incidentally 
done to the lives and possessions of British subjects during 
the Revolution and for the further injuries caused by delib- 
erately hostile misdeeds had no place in the balance. As these 
considerations stood and could stand in no relation to the 
legal claim of the Bolshevist Government to exercise the sov- 
ereign rights of the State, they went for nothing. 

Now in the case of Mexico, it is urged, the arguments 
against Mr, Hughes' demand have incomparably more force 
than those which carried the day in favour of the recogni- 
tion of the Russian Duumvirate. In fact, there is not a single 
motive drawn from Mexico's debts or commitments — none of 
these have been, or will be, repudiated — which can reasonably 
be pleaded as an argument against acknowledging the present 
Government, seeing that it is admittedly the agency by which 
the sovereign rights of the Republic are duly exercised. In 
fact, if it be not first recognised, it cannot be deemed com- 
petent to conclude any treaty or compact or to satisfy any 
claims whatever. 

It may be objected that the United States has created a 
new precedent and laid down as an indispensable condition that 
the Government to be recognised must first prove that it has 
both the disposition and the power to discharge its interna- 
tional obligations, and unless and until it has successfully 
undergone these two tests it is not entitled to be recognised. 
With the assumptions underlying these terms Mexico can join 
issue and show that this innovation has not been accepted by 
the community of nations, forms no part of international law, 
is therefore binding on no Power and is tantamount to a dis- 
regard for the law of nations. 



212 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

^ What it amounts to is the one-sided promulgation of a 
principle new to international custom and tradition, which 
shall be applicable on the American Continent to Latin-Ameri- 
can States and shall fit in with that new and comprehensive 
interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine which has been advo- 
cated by Mr. Fall in his public utterances^. This tendency is 
a survival of the ambitious experiment tried at the time of 
the historic Panama Congress ^ and thwarted in the clash be- 
tween the Adams administration and the Jackson opposition. 
The object of that polity was to organise the Western Conti- 
nent "as a unit in independence of, and possible hostility to, 
the Eastern Continent." Some of the soundest American 
thinkers on both sides of the Rio Grande pulverised the no- 
tion of this dual organisation of the world. "In their quar- 
rels with European States," writes the eminent American 
sociologist already quoted, "it suits the South American States 
very well that the United States should act the cat's-paw for 
them, hxit it cannot be that their statesmen zinll be so short- 
sighted as to accept a protection zvhich would turn into domi- 
nation ivithout a moment's warning. . . . The advocates of 
the Monroe Doctrine have been forced to meet the argument 
that their doctrine was not in international law by new spin- 
nings of political metaphysics. They have to try to cover the 
fact tJiat the Monroe Doctrine is an attempt by the United 
States to define the rights of other nations. The modern con- 
ception, however, is that the States of the world are all united 
in a family of nations whose rights and duties towards each 
other are embodied in a code of international law." * That is 
a fair statement of the case. 

Those words uttered by a sagacious and patriotic American 
are re-echoed to-day by those Mexican statesmen who are 
endeavouring to rough-hew the destinies of their nation. They 
believe that they are breasting a current which — if they fail 
to stem it — will soon carry away the substance of Mexico's 
sovereignty. They are convinced that the first steps at the 

' In the vcar 1824. 

*Cf. ll'dr and Other Essays, by W. G. Sumner, p. 278. The italics are 
mine. 



RECOGNITION BY TREATY 213 

parting of the ways are decisive. And they are rightly re- 
solved, come what will, to stand their ground and make the 
true issues clear to the whole world. 

That, in brief, is President Obregon's attitude — as it ap- 
pears to an onlooker — towards the imposition of friendship 
by a treaty and a threat. 

A curious political document drawn up by the represen- 
tatives of the "unpolitical oil corporations" interested in Mex- 
ico deals with this matter in a series of fallacies which might 
impress the mere lawyer but could not impose upon the stu- 
dent of international politics. The gist of this prolix argu- 
ment which is thick-set with irrelevant quotations is briefly 
this : In determining whether the United States Government 
should recognise a new Government "erected by a foreign 
country there are two tests which have been always applied 
in determining this question: i. Whether it is in possession 
of the machinery of the State and is in a position to fulfil its 
international obligations. 2. Whether it is disposed and will- 
ing to fulfil such obligations." One of the principal quota- 
tions given is this : "It has been the custom of the United 
States, when such changes of government have heretofore 
occurred in Mexico, to recognise and enter into official rela- 
tions with the de facto Government as soon as it should appear 
to our Government to have the approval of the Mexican peo- 
ple and should manifest a disposition to adhere to the obliga- 
tions of treaties and international friendship. 

"It cannot be too strongly emphasised that both of these 
tests must be applied with satisfactory results in order to 
meet the requirements of the United States State Department. 
Mere capacity to act properly unaccompanied by the disposi- 
tion to do so is not enough ; and the mere disposition, without 
the capacity, is, of course, unavailable." ^ 

This argument answers itself. For either the Obregon 
administration possesses the will and the power to meet those 
requirements or it lacks them. In the former case, recogni- 
tion should be accorded without more ado, and in the latter 
it is preposterous to suppose that the act of signing a treaty 
5 Moore's Digest, Int. Law, Vol. i, p. 148. 



214 MEXICO OX THE VERGE 

would make up for deficiency of will and power to fulfil inter- 
national duties. In order to gauge aright the significance of 
the demands put forward by Mr. Hughes, one need only imag- 
ine that they proceeded from Japan, were addressed to the 
United States and intimated Japan's refusal to recognise the 
present Republican Administration until and unless Japanese, 
subjects are treated in accordance with the law of nations. 
"^ With the praiseworthy intention of helping Mexico out of 
her difificulties Mr. Hughes, who seems to operate with ab- 
stract principles in vacuo, has provided a lever for all those 
Mexicans and Americans who are working openly or cov- 
ertly for the overthrow of the present Mexican Government. 
In his zeal for the defence of the rights of property he is 
sapping the power of the only defenders of property in the 
Republic. In the name of righteousness he is unwittingly 
aiding and abetting the conspirators who are plotting to re- 
plunge the country in confusion and urging President Obregon 
to break his plighted word. On behalf of a great democ- 
racy he is forcing Mexico by means of a financial and political 
boycott to acquiesce in a treaty which it considers detrimental 
to its sovereignty. In these ways he has established a strong 
claim to be judged not by what he is doing but by what he 
would do. V- 

The obnoxious treaty, it is argued, possesses the advantage 
that it can be enforced by military and naval pressure. True. 
But then so can any arbitrary exaction, and to plead this as 
an argument is to pass from the sphere of right to that of 
might. In any case it is an innovation for Mexico, and a 
perilous as well as a humiliating one. Nor is it only interna- 
tional law and Mexican forebodings which reject the condi- 
tion as capricious; the acid test of common sense produces 
the self-same effect. To discover the real disposition of any 
Government and discern motive behind the mask of words 
one must lie a veritable seer. Yet the politicians who advocate 
conditional recognition claim to be able to accomplish it. As 
for the second condition — the proof that any Government dis- 
poses of adequate power to discharge all its international obli- 
gations — it cannot he adduced until the experiment has been 



RECOGlSriTION BY TREATY 215 

made. And Mexico is keen to make it, whereas those who 
profess to desire it are resolutely hindering her. 

If we glance at the action of the world Powers to-day we 
find that they discard all such conditions as worse than use- 
less. They unhesitatingly recognised the Austrian Govern- 
ment, well knowing that it lacked the means of fulfilling its 
international obligations, and they recognised the German Gov- 
ernment despite the firm and outspoken conviction of its mem- 
bers that it could not meet its international liabilities and that 
even if it possessed the power it lacked the disposition. "Yes," 
one may object, "but in that case the Powers were and are 
prepared to enforce fulfilment by arms if necessary." "So 
too," Mexicans may retort, "is the Government of the United 
States, the only difference between the two being the resolve 
of the latter to employ force, if necessary, before recognition, 
and humiliation prior to force," And force will prove dis- 
astrous. International experts are agreed that it is meet that 
every attempt to isolate and impoverish a country for the pur- 
pose of constraining its Government to part with certain attri- 
butes of sovereignty should be unmasked and characterised as 
what it is — an unjustifiable breach of the laws and customs 
of nations, and that the despatch of a foreign police force to 
that country on the pretext that it has no recognised Govern- 
ment is neither more nor less than an overt act of war which 
deserves to be treated as such. It is the duty of the aggrieved 
State to accept such an overt act of war for what it really is. 

However just, then, the basic demands voiced by the Wash- 
ington State Department may be, the ground on which Gen- 
eral Obregon declines to consider them is that they are to be 
embodied in a covenant and imposed as a condition of recog- 
nition. And his contention is unanswerable. For they have 
no more to do with recognition than a clause of the postal 
convention. It Is pretty certain that Mexico's next Ambas- 
sador to Washington will wear a decent suit of clothes there 
and will not clash with the criminal law of the country. But 
if it pleased President Harding to refuse to receive any Mexi- 
can Ambassador unless his Government first promised in writ- 
ing that he would don the conventional garb of civilised men 



216 MEXICO OX THE VERGE 

and conducted himself properly, these terms would be sum- 
marily rejected and all the world would applaud. If the world 
is less awake to the extraordinary nature of the demand for 
a treaty, before recognition, it is because the issue is obscured 
by being mixed up with extraneous matter. The public is 
told, for instance, that the Mexican Constitution contains a 
clause confiscating the property of Americans who have in- 
vested their capital, devoted their brains and employed their 
time in exploiting the oil fields and that the confiscatory effect 
of that clause must be neutralised by treaty before the Re- 
public can be admitted into communion with three Powers — 
one may call them the Triple Entente for the Protection of 
American Rights. And the public accepts the allegation with- 
out further enquiry while those publicists who seek to place 
the matter in a diflFerent light find it passing difficult to venti- 
late their views in the United States press. 

Now that way of stating and confusing the question is 
hardly fair. Article 27 is not confiscatory, because it does not 
stand alone. If it stood alone, retroactive force might per- 
haps be read into it by jurisconsults, and retroactive force 
would undoubtedly render it what is termed confiscatory'. But 
nothing less than that. For the clause only nationalises the 
products of the subsoil and nobody has ever denied to the 
Mexican Republic the right to do this. What foreigners 
clamour against is the nationalisation of property which they 
had legally acquired before the Constitution was passed. And 
their resentment would be natural were their apprehensions 
well founded. But they are not. All such property is ex- 
pressly exempted by Article XIV which declares that nation- 
alisation shall not work backwards but only forwards. Its 
operation will be confined to the future and eliminated from 
the past. There is. therefore, no need whatever, Mexicans 
hold, for a treaty binding their Government to that interpre- 
tation of Clause XXVII which Secretary Hughes considers 
just. The Constitution itself leaves no doubt about the right 
interpretation. 

The opinion of the President of the Mexican Senate is 
worth reproducing here as a contribution to the discussion. 



RECOGNITION BY TREATY 217 

This legislator " contends that Article 27 has been disin- 
geniously construed by Mexican engineers. What the enact- 
ment really meant to do, he tells the public, was to establish 
the direct dominion of the State over the treasures of the 
subsoil but not its absolute dominion. It was the crafty engi- 
neers who distorted the tenor of the law. And the confisca- 
tory decrees against which the foreign companies raised their 
voices and Invoked the aid of their respective Governments 
presuppose the absolute dominion of the State, which was 
never aimed at by the legislators.'' This is the interpretation of 
an eminent Senator and as such it is worth recording. He 
seeks to reinforce it by laying stress on the circumstance that 
the decrees thus falsified did not bring In one cent to the 
nation during the three years that have passed since their 
promulgation. Experience has merely demonstrated their use- 
lessness and the impossibility of applying them. Indeed, the 
only noteworthy effect they produced has been to whet the 
cupidity of a few persons who covet their neighbour's goods. 
And he illustrates this by interesting examples. 

There was a Cuban citizen, he goes on to narrate, who spent 
the best years of his life selling cigars on one of the main 
thoroughfares of the Mexican capital. This humble Individ- 
ual has rapidly became the proprietor of more than 250 oil 
properties In virtue of those misinterpreted decrees. And curi- 
ously enough the lands are all situated in the very best locali- 
ties, just as though he had devoted the twenty years of his 
life spent in vending cigars to the study of the geography of 
oil wells! Another stroke of similar good fortune favoured 
a certain engineer who had merely to sign his name and buy 
a revenue stamp worth thirty pesos in order to become the 
fortunate owner of a well In Zacamlxtle which brings him In 
50,000 barrels of oil daily. This favourite of fortune, it is 
believed, was unaware of the whereabouts of Zacamlxtle when 
he first acquired his holding there. 

The Senator pointedly declares that to render the nationali- 
sation act retroactive would be to violate justice and to fly 

* Senor Adalberto Rios. 

'Cf. Universal, 14th April, 1921. 



218 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

in the face of the law itself. If the petroleum were the 
property of the nation, he urges, how could private individuals 
and foreign companies go on selling and exporting it as they 
have been doing on the strength of their leases and fees- 
simple?" The contradiction is manifest. 

In truth it was President Carranza's decree which originated 
the trouble. That President's treatment of foreign investors 
was at times most reprehensible and his endeavour to justify 
it by an appeal to Article 27 was a fallacy in law and a blunder 
in politics. And in this it is said he sinned against his own 
countrymen as grievously as against the outlanders, the appeal 
to the Constitution as his warranty being, so to say, the sin 
against the Holy Ghost. But for him too the day of doom 
arrived. His own people removed him from the dictatorial 
chair and his successors have repeatedly repudiated his doc- 
trine and solemnly promised to repeal the illegal acts and 
remedy the sinister consequences which have given rise to the 
present trouble. The injustice perpetrated by one President 
is being redressed by another and suitable amends made for 
damages inflicted. In all this the Constitution itself is not 
in question. 

"That is not enough," exclaim the advocates of the new 
doctrine. "If one President can repeal the acts of another. 
General Obregon's successor can repudiate the satisfactory 
interpretation which he may now read into the Constitution 
and four years hence we may be exactly where we were in 
1919, whereas if we possess a binding treaty signed and sealed, 
we are on the safe side once and for all." 

Now that mode of ratiocination is but a piece of specious 
casuistry. For if Obregon's successor can put a false con- 
struction on the clauses of the Constitution he can likewise put 
a false construction on the terms of the treaty. And what 
remedy will the United States Government have then? Ex- 
actly the same remedy which it possesses to-day without any 
treaty. That and nothing more. For even to-day, if the 
President instead of declaring, as he has done, that Article 27 
will l>e regulated by law in a broad spirit of equity and will 

* Universal, 14th April, 1921. 



RECOGNITION BY TREATY 219 

be applied without confiscatory effect or retroactive force," 
had refused to do anything whatever in the matter, what Hne 
of action would then be open to the United States Govern- 
ment? Precisely the same that it would have under the 
treaty, and none other. In each case it would feel con- 
strained to move in order to assert its rights, and shyness to 
come forward under such circumstances is not among its 
marked traits. And in both cases these rights derive from 
international law. Now if there is no tangible advantage to 
be gained by imposing a treaty as a prerequisite to recognition, 
what intangible advantage forms the motive for this singu- 
lar demand? Mexicans answer the question by an appeal to 
their history and to the many evil-boding symptoms reported 
to them lately from the United States. Grounded distrust 
has large eyes and a quick imagination, especially when por- 
tentous facts provide the spectrum. 

All that is so clear that it would be superfluous to dwell 
upon it were it not that the attention of the public is de- 
flected from the main issue by a cloud of wholly irrelevant 
considerations which are rooted in American group, party or 
personal interests and ambitions. There is but one fair way 
of presenting the matter to the world and it is this : Is it 
congruous with international law to constrain a sovereign State 
to conclude a treaty against its will? Is not such an act an 
abuse of power? Would a treaty be conducive to the praise- 
worthy aim which Mr. Hughes assuredly has in view — i.e., 
the protection of American rights? Nowise. For when he 
refuses to accept the guarantees now offered by the Mexican 
Government, it is admittedly because that Government may 
be unable to make good its less solemn promises. Yet it is 
exactly the same set of guarantors who will underwrite the 
treaty. There are none other. And if they are too power- 
less or too fickle to be trusted in the one case, the same dis- 
qualifications attach to them in the other case. 
^' What the American State Department, doubtless with the 
best intentions, asks is that General Obregon shall consent to 
a transaction which would brand himself and his administra- 
° Statement issued by General Obregon to the press on April 3rd, 1921. 



220 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

tion as.disingenuous or weak-willed, self-seeking men who have 
inherited together with the liabilities of their predecessors their 
defects and vices. As the State Department was unable to 
trust Carranza's pledged word it argues that it can have just 
as little faith in Obregon's emphatic assurances and it im- 
plicitly calls upon him constructively to admit that it is right 
by signing a document which would be superfluous on any 
other supposition and is humiliating and illegal on this. To 
contend that a treaty brought al>out under such conditions is 
not a humiliation of the entire Mexican people is to ignore 
the meaning of national dignity. Mexicans go further and 
assert that it is an attempt to goad the President into tram- 
pling on the laws of his country which he has sworn to observe 
and enforce. That this would be the direct effect of com- 
pliance with the demand of the State Department is evident. 
It is a noteworthy phenomenon, we are further told, that an 
instigation of this demoralising character should have found 
a place in the programme of a Republic to which is ascribed 
the future role of ethical guardian of the backward Latin- 
American peoples. If you want to shape a people's conduct 
for the general good, you must appeal to it through creditable 
motives and key it up to commendable, not to blameworthy, 
acts. A President who should openly qualify for his certifi- 
cate as a good moral ruler by lawless deeds and downright 
perjury would be a poor reformer for the ill-starred Mexican 
Republic. 

The fundamental law which the President has sworn to 
observe contains an article^" expressly withholding from him 
the right to conclude any such treaty as that proposed. If 
therefore he sets his hand to the Covenant on which the State 
Department insists, he is violating both the Constitution and 
his oath to observe it. There are doubtless ambitious men 
devoid of scruples who would pay even that price for power 
— the names of some of them have recently become public 
property — but President Obregon is not a member of the 
group. The inevitable effect of compliance with the State 
Department's demand would be to lower him to their levd 

»• Article XV. 



RECOGNITION BY TREATY 221 

and his fellow-citizens naturally join him in resenting the 
attempt. /> 

Further, assent to the proposal would be an implicit avowal 
that the Constitution establishes and legalises systematic con- 
fiscation of American property and that President Obregon 
considers it a praiseworthy act to violate such an iniquitous 
charter. Can he be expected to make that avowal? Would 
any self-respecting man make it? One knows what to think 
of a leader who first publicly proclaims his resolve to respect 
the Constitution, then swears fidelity to it and a few months 
later agrees to trample it under foot in order to induce a 
foreign Power to recognise him as Its guardian. Is it con- 
ceivable that the assertion of American rights calls for such 
a tremendous change in the political fabric of the Southerm 
Republic as the dissolution of democratic government there 
and the setting up of a dictatorship, to qualify for which per- 
jury is a peremptory prerequisite ? 

Many of Obregon's countrymen are prone to suspect that 
behind the imposition of a treaty as a preliminary to recog- 
nition lies some unavowed and sinister purpose. And this 
purpose they believe themselves able to perceive or divine, 
and entitled to counter. For, as we saw, the condition in 
question is a recent innovation for which no satisfactory 
grounds have been assigned. It is known to have been un- 
thought of before the closing months of the Wilson Adminis- 
tration. And it is admitted that nothing has since occurred 
to render it desirable or feasible, — that in fact the main 
events which have taken place in Mexico since then were cal- 
culated to produce the opposite effect. And the knowledge of 
these considerations was expected to exert a decisive and re- 
straining influence over the attitude of the Republican Ad- 
ministration. How telling a disadvantage it is thus to have 
international usage, ethics, logic and common sense and the 
example of all disinterested nations arrayed on the side of 
a little State in its passive resistance to the Government of a 
great and fair-minded people may be gathered from recent his- 
tory. It would be superfluous to recall the examples. 

In the first month of 19 17 the American Government, hear- 



222 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

ing tliat Carranza was devising measures of a confiscatory 
nature to the detriment of foreigners in Mexico, sent him a 
note to the effect that it would not "acquiesce in any direct 
confiscation of foreign-owned properties in Mexico or indirect 
confiscation." Soon afterwards the Constitution was adopted 
— the Constitution which is now the bogey of the foreign 
oil men and their political allies. The State Department in 
Washington forthwith asked for assurances from the Mexi- 
can Government that in enforcing this constifutiojial prozision 
American rights would suffer no abridgment. That is all that 
was asked for. And if it was necessary it certainly was ade- 
quate. It is manifest then that no rooted objection to the 
application of any part of the Mexican Constitution was at 
that time entertained by the State Department. Article 27 
as modified by Article 14 was neither condemned nor held to 
be incompatible with any foreigner's rights or interests. On 
the contrary it was rightly assumed to be reconcilable with 
these. All that was needed was an assurance that in apply- 
ing it American rights would not be infringed. And this 
assurance was given before a month had gone by " to the pres- 
ent Under-Secretary Fletcher. This response and a later one 
couched in similar terms were deemed to be perfectly "reas- 
suring," when Carranza was in power. The Constitution was 
not called in question. It is fair to conclude that the assurance 
then asked for, accompanied and followed by tangible evi- 
dence of its sincerity, would meet all the requirements of the 
case now that the presidential chair is occupied by a Mexican 
whose rectitude and will-power are beyond the reach of evil. 
We need not forget the imbecilities of the Carranza admin- 
istration nor palliate the presidential decrees which called forth 
protests from the Powers of the "Triple Entente." What 
really matters, however, is the striking change for the better 
which has taken place in Mexico since then and is being 
deepened and extended by the present Government. And this 
change warrants a more generous — or rather, a more just — 
attitude towards Mexico than was displayed by the United 

'^ On February 20th, 1917. It was repeated on the 2nd of August fol- 
lowing. 



RECOGNITION BY TREATY 223 

States during the Carranza regime when graft and sinister 
interest were rampant. And in any and every case a demand 
to-day for terms which were not considered necessary then 
would under all the circumstances have a blighting effect on 
the moral sense and self-esteem of the nation that enforced 
as well as the nation that accorded it. 

Those are some of the musings of those Mexicans who 
think and read and remember and wonder how it comes to 
pass that the great American people, in whose name that 
unacceptable demand has been presented, have never had the 
issues clearly placed before them. They complain that in none 
of the widely circulating journals of the Union has their side 
of the question been comprehensively set before the public, 
nay, that it has been positively and systematically kept out 
by occult influences. Surely it cannot be true of the Great 
Western democracy as it is of the Russian Bolshevist State, 
that politics is for the governing few and propaganda for the 
masses, or that it is disastrous to be right when the Adminis- 
tration happens to be wrong? And yet that is the view 
ascribed to certain North American politicians by Mexicans 
who object to be browbeaten into friendship with a foreign 
government in accordance with a plan devised by corporations 
and schemers whom they regard as enemies of their country. 

There is much more to be said on the subject but this is not 
the place to say it. The bearings of the treaty proposal upon 
the internal situation in Mexico cannot be ignored by the pub- 
lic, however much they may have been missed by responsible 
American politicians. One aspect of the matter hinges on the 
sinister effects which the forcible imposition of the treaty con- 
dition would produce on the public peace which Obregon has 
just restored. And these effects will be realised irrespective 
of the form in which the will of the United States Govern- 
ment is enforced, whether it be by the perpetuation of the 
economic blockade, the seizure of Mexican Custom houses, 
the despatch of warships or by undisguised military inter- 
vention. Tentative intervention has been going on all the 
time. But the spirit in which any decisive manoeuvre to 
abridge the sovereignty and wound the dignity of the Mexican 



224 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

Rqjublic would be resented by those who speak and act in its 
name is still but imperfectly realised to the north of the Rio 
Grande. And it is hardly too much to affirm that the reac- 
tion against such coercion would assume forms which would 
destroy the last vestige of pacification and throw open the 
sluice gates to anarchy, confusion and destructiveness. Is that 
the consummation which the inspirers of the financial boycott 
have at heart? 

There are but two sets of political conditions in which germs 
of chronic unrest can thrive and fructify in Mexico to-day, and 
of these one is not yet fully operative while the other is un- 
happily realised. The former is the line of coercive foreign 
action now l)eing pursued in the United States, and the latter 
is the perpetuation of that portion of the Constitution which 
bestows sovereignty upon the various States of the Mexican 
Union. For the moment we are concerned only with the for- 
mer and with it merely in so far as it obviously aims at the 
ousting of General Obregon from the presidency of the Mexi- 
can Republic and the substitution of a subservient instrument 
there for a genial worker, — of an Americanised pawn for a 
Mexican Chief. 

The belief is wide-spread and deep-rooted in Mexico that 
the latter consummation is being deliberately, directly and 
lawlessly striven for. This is a grave charge to level at any 
section of the citizens of a powerful nation and the people of 
the United States naturally looks forward to its speedy dis- 
proval while the people of Mexico as naturally anticipates the 
production of substantiating evidence. The historian in the 
meanwhile can content himself with chronicling the beliefs 
and tempers of each, waiting for what the morrow will bring 
forth and expressing his regret for the sake of art and poli- 
tics that the most consummate actors are not to be found on 
the theatrical stage. 



CHAPTER XIX 
The Public Debt and National Criminality 

No nation can live longer in peace than its neighbour 
pleases. Neither can any undeveloped and untutored people 
like the Mexicans establish by peaceful methods a new and 
stable order after the dissolution of its ancient politico-social 
bonds, unless its wealthy and powerful neighbour allows it. 
The enterprise on which the Obregon administration has em- 
barked is neither more nor less than the complete reconstruc- 
tion of a society. The task is not new in the world's history. It 
has been accomplished in various countries more than once but 
under conditions so unlike those with which the Mexican Presi- 
dent has to cope that the experience of the past is of little help 
in his undertaking. The notion that a foreign Government, and 
in particular that of the United States, can prescribe what is 
good for the people of the Southern Republic better than the 
leaders of that people is preposterous. What the capitalist 
groups and their political allies desire — and it is they who make 
this bold assumption — is that the period which has elapsed since 
the halycon days of Diaz should be treated as an impertinent 
parenthesis in history and the threads of national and interna- 
tional polity be taken up where they fell from the nerveless 
hands of that aged Dictator. The Revolution and its conse- 
quences are to be ignored, the hands of the clock of time turned 
back. Truly the minds to which these ideas commend them- 
selves are not of the type that can offer sound advice, still less 
continuous guidance. 

The revolutions through which Mexico has passed — ^largely 
the outcome of foreign economic thraldom — were undoubtedly 
a fruitful source of national misfortunes. They kept the nation 
anchored in the stream of time while other peoples were rapidly 
moving forward to pleasant harbours. They dethroned cher- 
ished ideals and overthrew institutions that had once performed 

225 



226 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

a useful part in the State organism and some that were still in- 
dispensable for a time; They dislocated trade, commerce and 
industry. All this is true and deplorable. But it is well worth 
noting withal, say Mexican thinkers, that throughout this awful 
welter the people were actuated by an ardent instinctive desire 
to better the lot of the whole community, to create equal oppor- 
tunity for all, to inaugurate an era of justice and liberty and to 
put an end to one of the most repulsive spectacles ever wit- 
nessed in any country — the perpetuation of national misery, 
ignorance and disease, nay of the degeneration of a naturally 
gifted people — in order that a few foreign corporations should 
pile up immense dividends and a few foreign politicians should 
make a dent in local history. 

And this was a noble striving, little though it is understood 
by those interested outlanders who would fain present the 
Mexicans with the fruit of the tree of knowledge and teach 
them what is good and what is bad for them. 

Now that the revolutionary epoch has come to an end, and 
even the bitterest enemies of the new regime have decided to 
content themselves w^ith constitutional weapons in their future 
struggles. President Obregon, his Government and his people 
are confronted with the prospect of being thrust back into the 
quagmire of chaos from which they have just emerged. And 
the people responsible for this back-handed stroke are certain 
of the groups which have thriven on Mexico's resources and 
their political coadjutors in the United States. Mexicans who 
have given this matter some thought re-echo with the fervour 
of conviction the significant utterances of President Harding in 
the course of his eloquent address from the cloister of the 
Washington Memorial ChapeP : "The rational work of every 
civilisation is to cure without destroying and guard against the 
enemies of liberty who come to us cloaked in pretended helpful- 
ness ..." That is a part of the rational work which President 
Obregon is conscientiously playing to-day. 

As for the official directors of the policy of the United States 
which is fettering Mexico commercially, financially, indus- 
trially, and checking her moral and spiritual development, they 

* On June 6th, 1921. 



PUBLIC DEBT AND CRIMINALITY 227 

at least can lay the unction of good intentions to their souls. 
They are working in their own way according to their own 
lights for what they believe is their own country's good and 
Mexico's. But they are driving the latter country into the 
Slough of Despond. "I can think of an America," said Presi- 
dent Harding in that touching address of his which the New 
York Herald termed "a sermon of faith . . . and hope" — "I 
can think of an America that can maintain every heritage and 
yet help humanity throughout the world to reach a little higher 
plane," So too can the Mexicans, and it is precisely from such 
an America and not from rich companies and associations 
which are endeavouring to sway her policy that they looked, 
less perhaps for immediate help to reach a higher plane, than 
for common justice. And odd though it sounds, they have 
hitherto looked in vain. 

Mexicans ask : What is justice in the Mexican problem as 
it affects the great northern Republic ? Surely it is to do unto 
Mexico as you would have Mexico do unto you? Is that the 
attitude of official circles in the United States? A few instruc- 
tive incidents in the recent history of the two countries point 
the answer. 

The vagueness, inconstancy and incongruousness of the 
policy of the United States towards Mexico are among the 
most perturbing factors with which the latter country is con- 
tinually full fronted. In the sphere of international relations, 
where so much else that affects the nation is decided, nobody 
can foresee to-day what to-morrow will bring forth. The 
consequent incertitude is disconcerting and mischievous. For 
the potentialities are well nigh unlimited and range from the 
exchange of cordial missives and the visits of common friends 
of the Presidents to the sudden despatch of warships on an 
errand incompatible with pacific intercourse. The advent 
to power of the Democratic Party, for instance, means the 
unfolding of a veritable kaleidoscope of measures that run 
counter to each other and leave one utterly bewildered, while 
the triumph of their Republican adversaries brings with it a 
behest to Mexico to reverse her policies, alter her Constitu- 
tion, change her laws and follow the new lead under pain of 



228 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

economic strangulation. And however friendly the official 
attitude may be, Mexicans are never free from the conscious- 
ness that a strong and steady undercurrent of unofficial 
schemes and machinations is flowing onwards into the vast 
Monroe reservoir, the sluices of which may one day be opened 
to sweep away their independence. 

And in all this there are no principles to discuss, no politi- 
cal conceptions to analyse, no definitions to consider — nothing 
but the public utterances it may be of an eminent and honour- 
able lawyer or professor who has never studied foreign rela- 
tions and can have no notion of the psychology of the Mexican 
people unless he have received it by a pentecostal miracle. 
And the form is that of a whimsical dilemma which takes no 
account of national or international precedents. 

Conditions like these put a tremendous strain upon the 
efforts of the men charged with the reorganisation of the 
Mexican State, fill them with grave anxiety, tend to produce 
involuntary fluctuations in their policy and confront them with 
the most sinister prospect which any Government can face. 
And they are unable to vie with their adversaries, whose influ- 
ence over the press has no parallel in any other country, in 
setting their view of the matter before the fair-minded people 
of the United States. All the items of news calculated to 
discredit the Mexican people are carefully gathered, classed, 
commented, launched forth, and at irregular intervals sensa- 
tional fabrications are circulated as news, the only effect and 
presumably the sole object of which is to irritate the American 
nation and produce spurts of fire culminating mayhap in a 
conflagration. Thus lately ^ a telegram was published by the 
Universal Service announcing that the American flag flying 
from a small boat of the warship Cleveland was torn down and 
trampled on by Mexicans during the stay of American ships 
in Tampico. that "it was unsafe for Americans to walk the 
streets in Tampico," that "the children cursed us in English 
and spat at us," and more to the like effect. Against this poison- 
ing of the sources of information — a vice bequeathed by the 

2 In the second half of July, 1921. Sec the Mexican Post, July 20th, 
J921. 



PUBLIC DEBT AND CRIMINALITY 229 

war propagandists and intensified by other propagandists who 
have succeeded those — the Mexicans are powerless. But the 
serene temper and complete absence of irritating language with 
which those undignified tactics were commented on by the na- 
tive press challenge and receive the admiration of the foreigner.^ 
Probably never since the downfall of Diaz has there been less 
bitterness, less distrust of the average American by the average 
Mexican, than to-day, and the example repeatedly given by 
the President has had a profound, widespread and beneficial 
effect. 

"Without the shadow of a doubt," General Obregon said 
when addressing American and Mexican citizens in Nogales,* 
"it is to morality and to culture that the world of the future 
will look for guidance and direction. And we, in harmony 
with this new tendency, will gladly throw open our frontiers 
and fraternally stretch out our arms to all men of good will 
who bring with them those two elements of progress and come 
to co-operate with us for the advancement of our country."^ 
The prevalence of this new spirit of brotherhood is still un- 
known, hardly even suspected by the people of the United 
States. And yet it is one of the most potent factors in the 
future relations of both Republics. After all, ignorance of 
each other is the mother of hatred, feuds and wars among 
nations. The most efficacious means of securing and main- 
taining peace is to get the various peoples to know each other 
and, one may add, to get them also to know themselves. Every- 
thing that conduces to that is a valuable international asset 
and every deliberate attempt to defame the character or exag- 
gerate the defects of a people in the eyes of its neighbours is 
one of the most nefarious of the many misdeeds that still go 
unpunished. Those who for such a purpose tamper with the 
press, the cinema and other sources of public information are 

' "It is the duty of all who love fair play, and especially of those who 
desire that the United States and Mexico should be friends and good 
neighbours, to condemn in unmeasured terms the circulation and publication 
of false reports of the kind above referred to." Cf. Mexican Post, July 
20th, 192 1. 

■* On July 4th, 1920. 

* The Nogales Herald, July 7th, 1920. 



230 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

among the worst pests of civilised society. And to-day their 
name is legion. 

General Obregon made a praiseworthy effort to bring influ- 
ential sections of the people of the United States into close 
contact with his fellow-countrymen. He had excursions 
planned for members of various chambers of commerce, jour- 
nalists, students and men of business to whom the various in- 
stitutions of Mexico with all their advantages and defects 
were thrown open unreservedly. It was a noble enterprise 
worthy of encouragement from all men who have the advance 
of humanity at heart. Yet it was vigorously discountenanced 
by the two American associations whose members claim that 
they are Mexico's best friends. "The American Association of 
Mexico," we read, "being advised that a Committee of the 
Confederation of the Alexican Chambers of Commerce is 
visiting Los Angeles for the purpose of extending invitations 
to American business men to participate in the International 
Congress of merchants to be held in Mexico City next June, 
has decided to counteract this friendly move of Mexican busi- 
ness men by advising American merchants against attending 
such a conference or accepting any invitation from the Con- 
federation and urge them not to participate in any friendly 
overtures with the Mexican Government or the Mexican peo- 
ple until the Administration of General Obregon yields to the 
eight points set forth by this American Association of Mexico 
for the recognition of the Mexican Government."" 

The political allies of this and the other great association 
are credibly affirmed to have approved this unqualified measure. 

Mr. Gladstone who bad less striking examples of this anti- 
humanitarian spirit before his eyes wrote with firm convic- 
tion: "The history of nations is a melancholy chapter; that 
is, the history of Governments is one of the most immoral 
parts of human history." 

It is a noteworthy fact that at the present moment two 
grandiose experiments of a character as novel as they are 
momentous are being tried in two countries which are as far 
apart in space as they are in all else — Marxism af an imprac- 

^ El Universal, March 9th, 1921. 



PUBLIC DEBT AND CRIMINALITY 231 

ticable kind in Russia, and Government based on morality with- 
out admixture of "diplomacy" and what "diplomacy" stands 
for, in Mexico. Those business men and numerous other 
guests of the latter country from the United States beheld 
things there as they are — the poverty and ignorance of the 
people, the backward state of communications, the deadlock 
produced by State penury, caused by the economic boycott, the 
accumulating wealth of a few foreign companies, and at the 
head of this ill-starred nation a man with a genius for moral 
probity. And returning to their native country they petitioned 
their Government to put a speedy end to the system of eco- 
nomic throttling to which Mexico is being subjected. 

Another equally significant example of the corporate and 
anti-democratic spirit of the undying class of wealth-mono- 
polisers, as contrasted with the political tact and sense o£ jus- 
tice evidenced by President Obregon is afforded by their re- 
spective attitudes on the subject of taxation. The oil com- 
panies, when an additional tax was imposed on the crude oil 
exported from Mexico, uplifted their voices against the assess- 
ment, stigmatised it as disguised confiscation, dismissed thou- 
sands of working men, filled the newspaper press with lamen- 
tations, threats and figures, and then rushed to their Govern- 
ment asking it to make the matter a State concern and to have 
the tax removed by diplomatic pressure or more drastic 
methods. On the other hand, Mexicans resident in the United 
States, some of whom live entirely, others partly, upon the 
profits from their lands or business in Mexico but have to pay 
income taxes in the United States upon the whole sum received, 
irrespective of its source, petitioned President Obregon to press 
the diplomatic lever for the purpose of having the burden, 
which they consider unfair, lightened or removed. The Presi- 
dent replied to those requests through the Mexican Consuls in 
the United States as follows : "It behooves all Mexican citi- 
zens who enjoy the hospitality of the United States to abide 
by the laws of that country and to pay their taxes without mur- 
mur. In no case will the Mexican Government entertain any 
requests or petitions of the nature of those which it has re- 
cently received, nor can the matter be made a subject for pro- 



232 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

test or representation to the Government of the United 
States."^ 

This and similar characteristic facts are unknown in the 
United States. 

It cannot be gainsaid that the enemies of Mexico's inde- 
pendence are working strenuously behind an almost im- 
penetrable screen of prejudice, ignorance and misconception 
raised by themselves and their propagandists. It is this cur- 
tain that hinders the people of the United States from 
acquainting itself with the remarkable reforms which have 
already been taken in hand by the present Mexican administra- 
tion and the deciding circumstance that those measures are 
being retarded by a group of individuals bent upon creating 
"accomplished facts" and thereby forcing the hand of the 
United States Government and the reluctant acquiescence of 
the people in consequence of those facts. 

No Mexican questions the loftiness of Mr. Hughes' inten- 
tions or considers the measure in which they shaped them- 
selves conducive to their realisation. Nor can any careful ob- 
server blink the grave danger which the deadlock produced 
by the delay of recognition on the one hand and the continu- 
ous machinations of interventionists on the other hand has 
created for the Mexican Republic. True. Mr. Hughes has 
brushed aside all Mr. Fall's recommendations excepting that 
of a treaty antecedent to recognition. A' small matter in 
itself, this is the grain of sand that hinders the international 
machinery from working. If it could be complied with by the 
Mexican Government it would add nothing to the existing 
guarantees for life and property in Mexico, the cordiality of 
the friendship between the two peoples or the stability of the 
amicable relations between the two Governments. 

And yet that superfluous demand has sealed up all sources 
of international credit to Mexico, is hindering or retarding 
the reorganization of the country, and thus providing the 
enemies of that Republic with pretexts for further complaints 
and accusations. Caustic criticism is applied, for instance, to 
the defective condition of the railways, yet the money needed 

'' See also the Mexican Post, 24th July, 1921. 



PUBLIC DEBT AND CRIMINALITY 233 

for the purchase of rolling stock is withheld on the ground 
that no loans can be made until the political demand of the 
State Department has been fulfilled. The work of educating 
the people, vigorously taken in hand by President Obregon 
and the Rector of the University, Senor Vasconcellos, who 
have worked wonders by their splendid campaign against 
illiteracy, is severely handicapped by lack of funds. And the 
funds are not available for reasons of foreign politics. Thus 
Mexico is deliberately kept revolving in a vicious circle. All her 
financial and economic problems are dealt with on purely po- 
litical lines and kept without solutions while her proper politi- 
cal status is denied to her on grounds which in the last analy- 
sis are industrial and economic. In a word, oil is trump. The 
claims of the United States Government for losses inflicted 
on its nationals during the Revolution offer an instructive case 
in point. The issue turns upon international law, not upon 
politics. Yet here is what we find : President Obregon writes : 
"Even now we are planning the machinery that will settle all 
claims in accordance with the principles laid down by interna- 
tional law. Nor should it be forgotten that as late as six 
months ago we urged our creditors to send a committee to 
Mexico for conferences in the interests of fair adjustments 
and honest settlements. Strangely enough, acceptance of the 
frank invitation has been prevented by various governmental 
pressure, and to date Mexico has not been able to secure these 
face-to-face meetings that are her desire." * 

To clamour for fair adjustments and honest settlements, 
then to decline to co-operate in making them, hardly offers 
firm ground for the contention that Mexico is endeavouring 
to evade her obligations. 

A vast amount of foreign capital in the United States and 
Europe is waiting to be invested in the Republic from motives 
which seem conclusive to its possessors. Foreign capitalists 
are aware that Mexico possesses all the natural conditions 
requisite and adequate to the creation of wealth. They also 
know that her liabilities judged by latter-day standards are 

8 Cf. President Obregon's telegram to the New York World, 27th June, 
1921. 



234 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

insignificant. Her debt, for example, \vhich is so often 
alluded to as "overwhelming and unpaid," is in Mexican pesos 
as follows : 

Principal Interest due 

External debt 287,0^3.240.53 87,001,260.10 

Internal debt 136,510,387.50 42,522,269.33 

States' debt 3,500.000.00 1,254,492.75 

427.053.628.03 130,778,022.18 

Grand total 557,831,650.21 Pesos 

Equivalent $278,915,825.11 U. S. Currency 

"This amount of a little more than a quarter of a billion 
dollars is distributed among a population of sixteen millions 
or thereabouts. At the close of the Civil War the United 
States, with a population two and one-half times as great, 
had a total indebtedness of three billions of dollars. Canada, 
with a population of less than one-half that of Mexico, has a 
present indebtedness of two billions of dollars, and is now 
increasing it in order to care for its soldiers. 

"Mexico has always paid what she owed, and the longer 
her creditors have waited for her to pay, the more costly 
it has been to Mexico. It is estimated that the Government 
revenues for the present year will yield one hundred million 
dollars United States currency. 

"Thus, the total of Mexico's Public Debt is not triple the 
entire budget of the Republic." ° 

Mexico's per capita national public debt charge amounts 
to about one U. S. dollar a year whereas that of the Argentine 
is now more than seven dollars, that of Belgium about sixteen 
dollars and that of Canada thirty. These figures are signi- 
ficant. 

Consequently the national debt is not overwhelming. 
Neither is there any fear of President Obregon having re- 
course to the shabby expedients to which so many other States 
on both shores of the .Atlantic have occasionally had recourse. 
Repudiation has no place in his programme. On the con- 
trary, he has stated publicly and repeatedly that the national 
debt will be paid to the last farthing. In this connection people 
•The (New York) Nation, June 22nd, 1921. 



PUBLIC DEBT AND CRIMINALITY 235 

who have given this matter their attention recall the fact that 
several States of the American Union have given a dubious 
example to Mexico, having themselves been in default for 
quite a number of years. "It is to be hoped," writes a cor- 
respondent of the London Morning Post,^° "that any settle- 
ment of British indebtedness will take into consideration these 
outstanding debts. 

"According to the annual report of the Council of Foreign 
Bondholders, the amount to which these States are in default 
is estimated at $60,000,000. The same report, after taking 
note of the fact that a settlement of West Virginia's debt was 
made in 19 19, remarks: *It is indeed regrettable that those 
States of the nation whose credit leads the world should allow 
their obligations to continue in default and refuse to listen 
to appeals from their creditors. The Council would be glad 
to hear what arguments can possibly be adduced in extenua- 
tion of the conduct of Mississippi in repudiating payment of 
its loans in 183 1 and 1833, which were duly authorised by 
the State Legislature and issued at a high price in this 
country. 

" 'The State invested the proceeds in the establishment of 
two banks and so long as they prospered Mississippi paid the 
bondholders; but when the banks ceased to be profitable the 
State not only suspended payment, but actually repudiated 
its debt. Such a step has not been taken even by so backward 
a country as Honduras.' 

"The Morning Post's correspondent suggests that, now that 
Great Britain is a debtor country to the United States, the 
latter be asked to recognise the debt of its defaulting States 
as a national obligation." 

These and similar facts are relevant to the various staple 
charges brought against the Mexican people. 

Before forming a final judgment on disputes such as that 
which at present sunders the Mexican from the United States 
Government one would do well to scrutinise the issues in the 
light of the reciprocal relations of the two States over a num- 
ber of years. This is the only way to assess at their just 
"May 2nd, 1921. See also the New York Times, 3rd May, 1921. 



236 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

value charges preferred by one country, which has but re- 
cently desisted from acts of the kind it complains of, against 
another which is only just following the good example of 
turning over a new leaf. Thus when looking into the oft- 
expressed apprehension that Mexico may repudiate her debt, 
one would do well to bear in mind the virile retort made by 
President Obregon in his historic telegram to the New York 
IVorld : " 

"We stated repeatedly that Mexico would not repudiate any 
just obligations. We have always paid our debts, we always 
will pay our debts. We have seen a loan of $20,cx)0,ooo re- 
ceived in 1824 changed magically into a debt of more than a 
$100,000,000. We have seen Maximillian sign an obligation 
for $40,000,000 in return for a loan of $20,000,000. We 
have seen Miramon, the counter-revolutionist, sign a note for 
$15,000,000 in return for a loan of $750,000. Yet not once, 
even under these outrageous burdens, have we ever advanced 
the idea of repudiation. Throughout the revolution we stated 
repeatedly that Mexico would meet every just obligation with- 
out evasion. It is a promise that will be kept to the letter." 

The alleged criminality of the Mexican people is another 
of the many counts in the indictment against that Republic 
and of the pretexts alleged for the necessity of the "clean- 
ing-up" process. A dispassionate study of the facts, however, 
■will show that the charge is calumnious, and a comparison 
between the crimes perpetrated against life and property in 
Mexico and those recorded in other States of the new world, or 
indeed of the old, will not redound to the discredit of the 
former country. It would be unfruitful and ungracious to 
point to the recent lynchings in Georgia, the robberies in 
the Middle West, the tarring and feathering of defenceless 
citizens, American and foreign,^- women and men, in Texas 
and other parts of the United States, or to the kidnapping 

i> Tune 27th, IQ2I. 

'2 In Miami, Florida, the Rev. Philip S, Invin, a British subject, rector 
of a church in the neerro quarter, was seized one nipht by masked men. 
whipped, t.irred and feathered and left IvinR in the street where he was 
ultimately found by a jiolicemnn. Between April ^"^t and 24th July, 1921, 
twenty-six such disgraceful incidents were recorded in Texas. 



PUBLIC DEBT AND CRIMINALITY 237 

of a little boy of five in New York City who was cruelly put 
to death because his parents were unable to pay the heavy 
ransom demanded. Nor does the Mexican press make cap- 
ital out of data of that character. Such revolting atroci- 
ties, whether they occur in one republic or the other, kindle 
a blaze of anger in the hearts of all normal men in both 
countries. For either people to indulge in exaltation over 
the other after the matter of the Pharisee in the Gospel, or 
Mr. Fall in his Report to the Senate, would be unfair and 
premature. 

The same remark holds good of that canker of nearly all 
the republics of the New Continent for which Americans 
have invented the term "graft." Unhappily, it is as wide- 
spread as it is deep-rooted. That Mexico is no exception 
is perfectly true. If years of revolutionary chaos, pillage and 
lawlessness were the real explanation of this deplorable phe- 
nomenon the friends of that country might well rejoice. But 
unhappily the cause lies deeper and cannot be displaced in a 
day or a year. And yet, oddly enough, the writer of these 
pages is acquainted with an American who invested many 
millions of dollars in that country without having paid one 
centavo in bribery. But for that one there are thousands of 
others who have a different story to tell. 

It is more instructive than edifying to read the following 
remarks in one of the really independent press organs of the 
United States. The subject was the disclosures made by Mr. 
Untermyer : "His revelations are a tremendous blow at the 
present economic organisation of society. For he has estab- 
lished a number of highly important facts : First, wherever 
he has probed he has uncovered labour or capitalistic con- 
spiracy, or corruption, or both, always at the cost of the pub- 
lic; second, he has proved the existence of ring after ring 
and ring within ring all in flat violation of law; third, he has 
proved that the United States Government has deliberately 
permitted these rings and combinations in restraint of trade 
to exist by prosecuting neither civilly nor criminally: and, 
fourth, he has proved where the sympathies of our courts 
lie in that every labour rascal whose prosecution he has brought 



238 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

about has been given a jail sentence, while every crooked 
business man has been let off with a fine." " 

It would be difficult to frame a more sweeping indictment 
against a society than that and impossible to mark more 
clearly the character of a truly progressive and fearless press 
organ than by framing it; but the amazing expose presented 
by Mr. Untermyer is worth mentioning here only because 
it connotes the depth and strength of corruption in such a 
model State as the North American Republic, whose mission 
is believed to be the ethical and economic guardianship of its 
neighbours. "The revelations of Mr. Untermyer," continues 
the journal already quoted, "reveal as conscienceless and un- 
social a state of business life as could well be imagined. For 
the sake of private or corporate profit we behold an economic 
condition of lawlessness and cut-throat exploitation to give 
heart to every extreme advocate of social reconstruction who 
believes that our capitalistic system needs only a little more 
time to collapse of its own rottenness." ^* 

If one assumes for a moment that equally vehement terms 
of condemnation are applicable to Mexicans, who by the way 
are not capitalists, by what country in the new world could 
they l^e appropriately uttered? Which of them is qualified 
to cast the first stone? 

Protection for American business men who are engaged 
in legitimate commercial and industrial pursuits in Mexico 
is one of the staple postulates of those groups of companies 
and politicians in the United States who are striving to press 
their political programmes on their Government and their 
fellow-citizens. And it is perfectly legitimate. But if a league 
of Mexican patriots were to lay siege to the Teatro Arbeu in 
Mexico City, to picket for a whole day, to organise a riot 
lasting six hours and finally to put a violent end to the per- 

"The (New York) Nation, July 6th, 1921. 

^* The (New York) Nation, July 6th. 1921. .\nothcr instance, taken 
from the New York Times of June 13. 1921, is worth a passing reference. 
Lewis F. Jacobson, counsel for Aschor Brothers, owners of a chain of 
movinp picture houses in Chicago and vicinity, expressed to the Legislative 
Committee which is investigating business conditions in Chicago his belief 
that the theatre men of that cit^ had been compelled to pay out approxi- 
mately one hundred thousand dollars in graft. 



PUBLIC DEBT AND CRIMINALITY 239 

formance on the ground that the film on the screen was 
American-made and must be replaced by one taken in Mexico, 
with what feelings would the announcement be read by Amer- 
ican patriots? Yet incidents of this kind are met with in 
the United States without evoking an emotional thrill. "The 
American Legion," we read in a Los Angeles newspaper, "at 
8 140 o'clock last night won a complete victory in the first open 
fight in this country on the German-made film issue, when 
Hollywood Post, after a day of picketing and rioting lasting 
more than six hours, caused Miller's Theatre to stop its per- 
formance of the German-made 'Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' and 
to put in its place a Los Angeles-made film. The playhouse, 
which had started the picture early in the afternoon for a two 
weeks' run, capitulated only after it had been picketed for 
hours by hundreds of men in uniform and after the disturbance 
at its entrance had gone to such extremes that two mob rushes 
had been attempted, rotten eggs had been hurled, and police 
and provost guard forces had been reinforced until they 
numbered thirty-five men." 

"Ten days later the same newspaper announced that at a 
meeting of the Loyal American Film League it had been 
decided to send a representative to Chicago, New York, Wash- 
ington and other cities in an effort to spread the campaign 
against German-made motion pictures." ^^ 

When reading these and similar disclosures about a well- 
ordered State whose ofKcial guides preach righteousness and 
aspire for their country to the moral overlordship of a Con- 
tinent, we cannot but feel that we are living through a period 
when the foundations of political and social institutions are 
sapped and rotten, and caprice and self-delusion are taking 
their place. Some of the established landmarks of old-world 
civilisation are being moved, the cement of the social organism 
is crumbling and the place of ethical maxims is being usurped 
by the catchwords of cant and the unctuous jargon of phari- 
saism. The Governments and the press of the military and 
plutocratic States vi/hich rule the world to-day are apt to 
lay great stress upon justice, humanity, righteousness and 

15 The Nation, July 6th, 1921. 



240 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

other lofty ideals and to allege these as the motives of policies 
which in truth render an approach to these ideals a sheer im- 
possibility. Secretary Hughes announced that the fundamental 
issue between the United States Government and Mexico 
turns upon the safeguarding of property rights. In plainer 
words, the material rewards accruing to industrial initiative, 
however exaggerated they may appear in the light of the 
latter-day conceptions of private wealth and public needs, 
must take precedence over the material and spiritual welfare 
of an entire people. "There is no form of privilege and 
monopoly," writes an influential periodical " "so open to criti- 
cism as that in natural resources, which belong of right to 
the citizens of a country at large and to no particular group 
of men, much less to a group of outlanders. . . . Does not 
President Obregon's assertion mean something for Americans 
as well as Mexicans? 

" 'We stand to-day,' writes Obregon, 'on the principle that 
the natural resources of a nation belong to the nation. Never 
again will the people of Mexico tolerate a Government that 
does not support this principle. . . . What Mexico will ask 
in the future is a fair partnership in development. We are 
through for ever with the policy of gift, graft and sur- 
render.' " 

The same journal, discussing the transition of natural rights 
into the legal phase of concessions granted, continues: "When 
in consequence of a development of civilisation natural re- 
sources come to possess a value undreamed of before, has 
not the Government the right to readjust the terms of the 
original grant in the interests of society at large? At one 
time no one questioned the right of a man to exclusive in- 
terest in the air alx)ve his land. With the invention of the 
aeroplane the interest of the community in this air leads to 
governmental action which is certainly retroactive. When 
this substance, as in the case of oil, l^ecomes of such impor- 
tance that it may be vital to national existence, does not a 
government's right to self-preservation extend to the recov- 
ery of title in return for a fair pecuniary compensation? 
i» The New Republic, July 13th, 1921. 



PUBLIC DEBT AND CRIMINALITY 241 

"But these subtleties are ours — not President Obregon's. 
He says emphatically: 'Every private right acquired prior to 
May 1st, 191 7, when the new Constitution was adopted, will 
be respected and fully protected. The famous Article 27, 
one clause of which declares the nation's ownership of subsoil 
rights in petroleum, will never be given retroactive effect, nor 
has it ever been given retroactive effect.' " 

"Right," Mazzini tells us, "is the faith of the individual. 
Duty is the common collective faith. Right can but organise 
existence; it may destroy, it cannot found. Duty builds up, 
associates and unites. It is derived from a general law, 
whereas* right is derived only from human will. There is 
nothing therefore to forbid a struggle against right." Nothing 
but might. 

Respecting the protection of the lives of aliens in Mexico, 
on which Mr. Fall's Report laid so much stress, nothing more 
is heard for the time being. Mr. Hughes doubtless under- 
stands that excesses committed at the time of Madero and 
Huerta have passed into history as completely as the lynch- 
ing of the eleven Italians by a mob in New Orleans in the 
year 1891. But it is not generally known in Europe that the 
murder of foreigners resident in the United States outside 
the Federal District, even though it amount to a massacre, 
is a crime which the Federal Courts of the United States 
are incompetent to try. Nay, if one of the States of the 
Union should violate an international treaty, the Federal 
tribunals may not take cognisance of it.^^ This is a fact 
well worthy of the attention of those who blame President 
Obregon for not taking action against the backsliding States 
of the Mexican Union. 

It brings us face to face with the crux of the situation 
to-day — the obnoxious treaty which is to render recognition 
of the Obregon Government possible. The tenacity with 
which the demand is being pressed and the seemingly intense 
faith which is proclaimed in the force of a treaty — as though 
it possessed a sacramental virtue in this era of Haitian Con- 

^^A Bill is now before the Senate to authorise Federal intervention to 
protect the treaty rights of aliens in the various States of the Union, 



242 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

ventions and other scraps of paper — compel one to ask what 
benefit a compact of that kind would import into the rela- 
tions of the two countries? A covenant purporting to estab- 
lish friendship between two governments, one of which con- 
strains the other by economic strangulation to accept it, frankly 
deserves some other name. Its effect would hardly be friend- 
ship or cordiality, and it is someavhat difficult to apprehend 
the line of thought by which statesmen can have reached the 
conclusion that it would be that. 

But eliminating the two essential aspects of means and end, 
and keeping solely to that of the force inherent in the form, 
one feels tempted to ask what difference a written compact 
would make to Mexico's international relations from any 
point of view worth considering. Would it add a moral to 
an international obligation ? Hardly. Promises made under 
duress are seldom respected and never deemed to be obligatory 
in the political world, if they can be shirked or broken with 
impunity. This remark is not to be taken as a reflection upon 
either of the two Republics in question, but merely as an addi- 
tional illustration of the mysterious nature of the predilec- 
tion and respect which one of them displays for a formal 
bond in the case of the Mexican Republic, but repudiates in 
the case of the Haitian Republic. Involuntarily one asks what 
sort of a picture do those politicians conjure up in their mind's 
eye of the binding nature and enduring effects of a treaty 
generally. 

/ A Mexican press organ contributes data for an answer. 
"In the United States," it writes, "there is much talk about 
a treaty, but seemingly no recollection of the circumstances 
that there is one actually in force to-day. It was signed by 
the two governments at the close of an unjust war in which 
the weaker was forced to surrender to the stronger one-half 
of its territory — a much harsher condition than any that 
was imposed by the victors on the vanquished after the 
four years' world war waged on the other shore of the 
Atlantic. 

"And it may not be amiss to recall to mind Article 
XXI of that treaty, which runs: 'If unhappily at some future 



PUBLIC DEBT AND CRIMINALITY 243 

time any disagreement should arise between the governments 
of the two repubhcs respecting the meaning of any stipula- 
tion of this treaty or any other aspect of the political or 
commercial relations of the two nations, the aforesaid Gov- 
ernments in their name undertake to endeavour in the most 
sincere and strenuous manner to settle the differences and to 
preserve the state of peace and amity hereby established be- 
tween the two countries, and to employ for this purpose 
reciprocal representations and pacific negotiations. And 
should they not succeed in coming to an agreement by these 
means, recourse will not on that account he had to reprisals, 
aggression or hostilities of any kind by one republic against 
the other, until the government of the country which deems 
itself aggrieved has considered ripely and in a spirit of peace 
and good neighbourliness whether it would not be better to 
compose the disaccord by arbitration of commissioners ap- 
pointed by both parties or by a friendly nation.' ^^ 

"And we might point out that this treaty was in force 
at the time when the military invaders landed at Vera Cruz 
and trod our territory on their so-called punitive excur- 
sions. 

"And with all our blood transmuted into- eloquence we 
might exclaim : 'How is it possible for us to conclude a 
treaty with a State which does not know how to respect a 
treaty ?' 

"In what thrilling tones might we say : 'The United States 
have taken part in a war against a people whose government 
treated as mere scraps of paper the covenants which it had 
signed with various States. To Belgium, the mutilated nation, 
went out the sympathy of the whole civilised world, which 
unanimously condemned the conduct of the German Empire 
towards a weak neighbour, who took it for granted that the 
promise registered in a scrap of paper was binding on its 
honour. And for v\?^hat purpose? In order that the Republic 
of the North, which stood forth as the ally of right and 

18 This is not the original text of the article in English but a literal 
translation from the Spanish. As I am travelling in various countries I 
have been unable to get access to the English text. 



2U MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

justice, should treat its signature exactly as the German Em- 
pire had treated the scrap of paper which guaranteed Bel- 
gium's neutrality !' 

"We might well say this and more, . . ." ^' 
Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi. 

^* Excelsior (Mexico), June i8th, 1921. 



CHAPTER XX 
Obregon's Tasks and Difficulties 

The ancient Chinese teacher Confucius laid it down in one 
of his books that the good ordering of a political community 
depends upon the proper maintenance of five kinds of rela- 
tions: those between father and son; between the eldest and 
the younger brothers ; between friend and friend ; between hus- 
band and wife, and between master and servant. Any serious 
derangement of these, he held, would of necessity throw the 
entire organisation out of gear. Contemporary history con- 
firms the truth of the remark and extends its application. The 
anarchy which of late has thrown every nation of the globe 
into confusion is manifestly the result of a radical and, as 
many fear, permanent disturbance of all kinds of human re- 
lationship. Morality as a guide of conduct is persistently dis- 
carded in the mutual intercourse of nations, citizens, social 
classes, sexes, and of employers and employed. Every man's 
hand is raised against every other man and each organised 
group is intent upon the furtherance of its own interests to 
the exclusion of all otihers while doing lip homage to altruism. 
In a word, the cement which hitherto bound the elements of 
society together is fast losing its cohesiveness and civilisation 
in the forms in which it has progressed since tihe days of King 
Hamurabi and the builders of the Pyramids is seemingly 
doomed to undergo a radical change or vanish. 

Sanguinary and decimating intestine feuds and wars — 
largely the outcome of foreign machinations — ^had reduced 
Mexico to a like distressing plight before the rest of the world 
began to experience it, and now that internal conditions in that 
Republic are becoming exceptionally favourable to reconstruc- 
tion and progress the world-wave of anarchy threatens to roll 
over it with elemental force and can be kept out only by dras- 
tic and well-timed measures, to which, if they are to become 

245 



246 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

efficacious, her neighbours who are mainly answerable for her 
condition must also contribute wholeheartedly. 

The bulk of the Mexican people are as God made and man 
marred them. Their inborn qualities, which are many and 
excellent, have never had a fair chance to develop. In shak- 
ing off the Spanish yoke they showed that they knew how to 
die, but their subsequent political experiments proved them to 
be imperfectly qualified to live in a progressive self-governing 
comnumity. Nor was this either surprising or blameworthy. 
For their Spanish rulers had left them in a condition similar 
to that in which some haciendados keep their dependents to 
this day, benighted, squalid, listless and fatalistic. And one 
hesitates to affirm that any of the many changes brought about 
by foreign influence since then has raised them to a penna- 
nently higher level. Under the Spanish rule there was no 
political plan, no administrative machinery, nought in» the na- 
ture of self-government or of public opinion, to serve as 
models, nothing in short but a number of costly agencies or- 
ganised to harvest in cheaply and despatch safely to foreign 
ports as much as possible of the wealth of the country, leaving 
the people indigent and desperate. And to-day the same pro- 
cess is going on under another name. American oil men occu- 
pying the place of the Spanish wealth-exporters. Ethnically 
the country has progressed perceptibly. 

During the century which has elapsed since the declaration 
of independence Mexico has gone far towards producing a 
truly national type — a blend of the various ethnic fragments, 
mostly Indian and Spanish — to which immigration on a large 
scale is fast adding various European strains. To this phe- 
nomenon and its tangible results there is probably nothing 
comparable in any other part of the American Continent, nor 
indeed with the sole exception of Russia in any quarter of the 
globe to-day. Into its significance, which is likely to prove far 
reaching in the future struggle of races, neither American nor 
European statesmen have yet had the leisure or the desire to 
inquire. The fusion of the races, although still in flux, is visi- 
bly resulting in the rise of a whi,lly new people, whose temper, 
aptitudes, moral fibre and intellectual capacities differ con* 



OBREGON'S tasks 247 

siderably from those of the individual races of whose union 
they are the fruit. Unhappily, despite the absolute social and 
political equality of all the ethnic constituents of the popula- 
tion, the mestizos, now the most numerous element, has been 
as stunted in its mental and moral development as the Indian. 
The common people generally have had no fair chance to out- 
grow the superstitions, prejudices and narrow outlook upon 
the world with which the Spanish invasion found and the Car- 
ranza regime left them. Natural evolution has been checked 
among them systematically. Racial ties, instincts, tempera- 
ment, use and wont, perpetuated by geographical isolation and 
artificial restrictions, kept them bound to a past which had 
little or nothing in common with the progressive aspirations 
and ideals of the great onward-moving world outside their 
own. And so they remained adult children incapable of using 
the many organs of knowledge and advancement with which 
other nations were so well equipped. And they were kept un- 
conscious of their loss. The only seed that has been scattered 
among them since the roots of their religious faith were loos- 
ened is of foreign origin and nonconstructive tendency, and it 
is a matter of surprise that it has not perceptibly thriven and 
brought forth fruit, the conditions being so auspicious. It is 
not, however, the fault of the revolutionaries that, bom to 
gloom and misery, they instinctively made for such stray 
gleams of lig'ht as happened to pierce through the murk around 
them, nor are they answerable for the quality of this light 
which is sometimes of the nether regions. Now suddenly to 
apply foreign political coercion to such a mass of impulsive 
and wrathful humans would be like setting a lighted torch to 
a heap of tinder in a powder magazine. 

The lower orders of the Mexican people are not only unso- 
phisticated and politically listless, but they are also poor, under- 
fed, improvident, and over large tracts of country, especially 
in the South, physically degenerating. Their huts are eyesores, 
— ^Httle traps of infection, and so tiny and bare that, as the 
Russian peasants used to say of their own wretched abodes, 
the inmates "have neither the space in which to hang them- 
selves nor the wherewithal to cut their throats." It can hardly 



248 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

appear surprising therefore that many of the wretches thus 
brought into the world only to pass through the slow-grind- 
ing mill of disease, misery and pain, have abandoned their be- 
lief in a hell to follow such a life of suffering. The happiest 
among them are the dead, could they but realise it. It is fair 
to add that the living seldom exaggerate the value of existence 
and answer the death-call as readily as did the ancient Greeks, 
In the streets of cities and villages lepers commingle freely 
with the population without a challenge from the authorities 
or a protest from their fellow townsmen. I have actually 
seen them stalking the streets and begging alms unchecked in 
more than one town. The main cause of this woeful neglect 
is lack of funds which the United States Government is per- 
petuating, with excellent intentions and these sinister effects. 

It is obvious that abstract ideas, however respectable and 
attractive, can make but little impress on the minds of men 
and women so circumstanced. Only corporeal needs and ma- 
terial baits can goad or lure them to fitful action with the 
promise of immediate results. They rallied in their thousands 
around condottieri like Villa, Chavez, Pascual Orozco and 
others who could tempt them with loot and reward them with 
promotion, and they lavished their attachment and loyalty 
upon these chiefs with a rare degree of self-sacrifice. But like 
the average Russian of Tsarist days and not unlike some 
branches of the Latin race they entertain a distorted notion of 
lil>erty which they often confound with absolute license. 

The political domain in the Republic throughout those years 
of rapid decay was monopolised by the semi-intellectuals — a 
dangerous class in any loosely cemented society — men of nar- 
row horizons, no special attainments, insatiable ambitions and 
egotistic instincts. They lived not in the future or the past 
but exclusively in the present. None of them, not even Car- 
ranza himself, was endowed with the vision, the sense of pro- 
portion or the serenity of mind necessary to survey a distant 
horizon. Many of the partisans of the Government were past 
or prospective re1)els, and until Obregon gave a new meaning 
to the word "revolution" nearly every rebel was first cousin 
to a brigand. The unity of the army was riven by the spirit 



OBREGON'S TASKS 249 

of pronunciamientos ; the judicature was discredited by its ab- 
ject dependence on the Executive; the State departments were 
marts for graft. Industry, trade and commerce oscillated in 
rhythm with the uncertainty respecting the financial burdens 
to which they were liable and with the fitfulness of the open 
and covert attacks to which they were subjected by bandits, 
rebels and dishonest rivals backed or connived at by the author- 
ities. Hardly any of the principal dramatis persona: of Mex- 
ican history has made lasting contributions to the social or 
moral advancement of the nation, and none but Benito Juarez 
ventured upon helpful experiments in the difficult art of gov- 
ernance. Most of them were deficient in disciplined intelli- 
gence and lacked a trained sense of measure. Nor did any 
of them except Juarez attempt systematically to combine hu- 
manitarian interests with the nation's immediate requirements. 
Hence their influence, when beneficent, flitted swiftly like a 
lightning-fiash, leaving the gloom through which it broke as 
dense and dreary as before. 

The necessity of governing, if possible with, and in any 
case for, the people as a whole, was never thoroughly grasped 
by any of the former Presidents except Juarez. For most of 
the others the bulk of the population was merely a means, not 
an end. And as for those gifted individuals who under normal 
conditions might have made valuable contributions to the cause 
of progress they were but as foam on the revolutionary wave. 
During all this period of warfare and confusion the great mass 
of the nation yearned for peace. The various leaders were 
ready to die for it. But few of them were content to live and 
work for it. 

One can readily understand the arduous nature of the task, 
and the slowness of the process, of transforming a people thus 
floundering in an ooze of political decomposition into an or- 
derly, industrious, self-restrained and law-abiding society. 
Yet that is the concrete problem with which General Obregon 
has now to cope at the end of a purifying revolution. The 
utmost a successful revolution can accomplish is to remove the 
obstacles to renovation. Only the liberators and the people in 
concert can displace the effects of these and begin to build. 



250 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

And there is no grounded hope that a tidal wave of circum-' 
stance will roll in and bear the much suffering Mexican people 
to new and fruitful shores. There is but one road to reform 
and it is rugged and beset with natural hindrances. Unhap- 
pily in Mexico's case foreign Governments have blocked it 
with artificial barriers, rendering it wholly impassable. And 
they intensify the injury by claiming credit for humanitarian 
motives. 

General Obregon is confronted with perplexing problems 
drawn from every conceivable sphere : from the domains of 
foreign policy, internal legislation, constitutional law, national 
economy, railways and waterways, labour, finance, the army. 
And some of these are uncommonly delicate. True, the new 
President is gifted with an unusual stock of common or 
rather uncommon sense, with the rare quality of leadership, 
and, although still young, has vast stores of experience to draw 
upon. .This is another striking instance of his personal luck. 
For "experience," as the Turkish proverb puts it, "is usually 
a comb presented to us by destiny when our hair is all gone." 
But while genius in a statesman can achieve much, it cannot 
achieve everything. The greatest kneader of human wills 
when charged with reconstructive work depends for results 
very largely upon those to whose lot it falls to translate his 
ideas into acts. Even an autocrat is to that extent restricted 
in the exercise of his power, just as a skilled artisan finds his 
natural limitations in the materials and the implements of 
which he disposes. And whether General Obregon will find 
enough coadjutors and subordinates of the right kind for a 
task of this magnitude remains to be seen. 

One day when we Avere travelling through the Southern 
States and talking of the physical deterioration of the inhabi- 
tants which I ascril:)ed primarily to deplorable foreign in- 
fluences. I asked General Obregon what, in his opinion, was 
the first step towards reconstruction. He replied at once : "The 
people must be taught to eat. drink and house themselves 
properly. They have wrong notions on these subjects and the 
right ideas must be instilled into them methodically. This may 
sound fanciful but it is painfully true. They are chronically 



OBREGON'S TASKS 251 

underfed, yet they do not realise it. They often receive food 
unfit for human consumption, but instead of spurning they par- 
take of it and put up with the consequences, which are fre- 
quently disease and occasionally death. They are miserably 
lodged, yet make no exertion to acquire hygienic or comfort- 
able dwellings. They are among the most prolific people on 
the globe, yet the population remains almost stationary owing 
to the appalling death-rate among the children. Over vast 
stretches of the country the physical type has gone ofif to an 
alarming degree. The individual is listless, his initiative is 
atrophied, his activity fitful and unsustained. In a word he 
lacks enterprise and perseverance, and has hardly any grit. 
Now, as you know, the arts, the sciences, in fact all the cul- 
tural acquisitions which go with these, presuppose a certain 
standard of material well-being which our people are far from 
having reached. To help them attain that must be our fore- 
most care." 

On another occasion he said in reply to a kindred query: 
"The reforms which Mexico needs require at least four factors 
for their complete solution : time, capital, education and a di- 
recting hand. And I should like to add that the seemingly 
longest road to renovation is in truth the shortest, for in re- 
building a vast social organism one cannot improvise with 
safety." 

#' Of all the tasks awaiting General Obregon that which will 
most severely strain his ingenuity and resourcefulness is the 
transformation of the revolutionary Republic with which the 
world has so long been acquainted into a pacific and well or- 
dered community. And it is by far the most urgent and mo- 
mentous. Mexico must become an elective, law-abiding com- 
monwealth on pain of extinction as a sovereign State. The 
alternatives are as certainly these as if fate had embodied them 
in a formal decree promulgated urbi et orbi. ^,. 

The vices and propensities which years of savage warfare 
and unbridled license have engrafted on the soul of a section 
of the population cannot be eradicated in a few months, still 
less can they be displaced by a mere change of regime or the 
enactment of wise laws. This matter of converting the Re- 



252 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

public fram a revolutionary into a pacific State General Obre- 
gon is wont to refer to as the "suppression of lawless per- 
sonal ambitions," and from the very outset of his presidential 
career he set to work to deal with it energetically as occasion 
arose. 

Many of the measures which he has adopted since his ad- 
vent to power challenge the approbation of all who have Mex- 
ico's well-being at heart. But they only touch the fringe of 
the corrosive evil which must be eradicated once for all if the 
Republic is to maintain its sovereignty intact. And the first 
step is a correct diagnosis. Arbitrary government is not the 
most potent dissolvent of a State; it is anarchy, which offers 
an almost irresistible temptation to an ambitious or an order- 
loving neighbour to intervene. It was anarchy that disinte- 
grated the Polish Republic. It was anarchy and not despotism 
that destroyed the French monarchy and rendered the revolu- 
tion at once possible and inevitable. And anarchy, political, 
social and moral — far more than the irresponsible rule of Car- 
ranza, Huerta or Diaz, — is directly responsible for most of 
Mexico's misfortunes. The appearance on the scene of a born 
leader of men like General Obregon, however genial he may 
be, will prove but a parenthesis in the annals of the anarchist 
state, unless he succeed in changing the system root and 
branch. And this is tantamount to saying that he must bring 
about a complete revolution in the disposition of that section 
of the population wdiich has hitherto supplied the breakers of 
law and the disturbers of order. Here again his most artful 
thwarters are working in a friendly country under the cEgis 
of a foreign flag. 

If Obregon were suddenly to pass away to-day. his work 
and the l)est fruits of the revolution would vanish with him. 
The men in whom down to a few months ago the spirit of re- 
bellion, lawlessness and destruction was incarnate would once 
more unsheath their swords, mount their chargers and inaugu- 
rate another — and this time the last and fatal — period of civil 
strife in Mexican history. As long as Obregon continues to 
direct the affairs of his country peace and order may be 
deemed to be secure. That, however, is not long enough. The 



OBREGON'S TASKS 253 

test of a great ruler is so to govern the State and educate its 
members as ultimately to enable it to dispense with his ser- 
vices. Unless he does this he has accomplished nothing dur- 
able. Only if General Obregon can transform the revolution- 
ary Republic into a law-abiding state, in which the supreme 
power is transmitted by legal procedure, will he have achieved 
the most important part of his mission. And of this neces- 
sity he is perfectly aware. But the reforms which it entails 
not merely in the administration but in certain of the basic 
laws are so radical that one wonders whether under actual con- 
ditions they are likely to be realised. 

I have often talked with him on this topic and his concep- 
tions seemed to me on the whole perfectly sound. Although 
neither a historian nor a politician, his views of contemporary 
history and fMDiitics are those of a man who has deeply medi- 
tated on the course of human affairs and their larger aspects, 
and who firmly grasps the main factors in the politico-social 
currents of his time. He realises — much more fully than do 
most European statesmen — the interdependence of peoples and 
their unconscious but continuous approximation toward an in- 
formal community of the whole human race based on the high- 
est interests of each. His own ideal is a universal civil society 
cemented by justice, and his belief in its ultimate establishment 
is unshaken by recent events. His active undersense and feel- 
ing of the whole, joined to a keen understanding of the in- 
tegral parts, constantly impels him so to adjust the interests 
of his country to those of humanity that the two can be closely 
associated. This is the quality which distinguishes him from 
the best of his predecessors in the presidency, entitles him to a 
foremost place among the best statesmen of modern times and 
warrants the high hopes entertained of his work by those who 
know his views and appreciate his intentions. A subject on 
which I hold an opinion that may possibly provoke dissent 
among my Mexican friends is the federal State-system. With 
all the diffidence becoming a foreigner I venture to give it as 
my firm conviction that the maintenance of Mexico's sover- 
eignty will be found to be incompatible with the perpetuation 
of that clumsy arrangement. 



254 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

Approaching" the subject of reconstructioa from a different 
and less ideal starting-point, General Obregon realises the im- 
perative need of exceptional wariness and circumspection on 
the part of a weak and wealthy country whose neighbour is 
powerful, progressive, and enterprising. The motive is ob- 
vious. Unless the feebler nation contrive to conduct itself 
with passable seemliness at home and with extreme consid- 
eration for its neighbour abroad, it is certain to end by be- 
ing taken in hand and tutored by the latter. But even under 
the most favourable circumstances its troubles are likely to be 
so many and occasionally so distracting that the temptation 
is almost irresistible to seek an effective counterpoise to these 
drawbacks abroad. Such a course — legally open to every in- 
dependent nation — must appear especially attractive to Mex- 
ico. President Carranza was so enamoured of the idea that 
he seriously purposed realising it by acceding to the specious 
proposals laid before him by Germany during the war. And 
it is probable that he would have closed with them definitely 
had it not been for the vigorous opposition which he encoun- 
tered from General Obregon whom he consulted as the des- 
tined commander-in-chief of the Mexican forces. Obregon's 
view of the matter was at once realistic and sound. He char- 
acterised the suggested course of action as nationally suicidal 
and therefore refused to countenance it by word or deed. And 
when Carranza emphasised the promises made by the German 
Government and the benefits which it undertook to confer 
upon Mexico, he irreverently exclaimed : "Yes, Germany will 
help us as the clergyman helps the agonising man by commend- 
ing him to the protection of the Most High." 

His conception of the line of action imposed by present 
world conditions upon his country is this : "Mexico is the 
neighbour of the United States, wliose Government rendered 
her precious help — now too readily forgotten — in the revolt 
against the Spanish dominion. It is our imperative duty and, 
therefore, our interest to cultivate neighbourly relations with 
her Government and people and to show them every sort of 
consideration compatible with the independence, dignity and 
interests of the nation. Consequently, the notion of seeking in 



OBREGON'S TASKS 255 

foreign alliances or in military conventions an arm of defence 
against future contingencies from that quarter, contingencies 
which should never be allowed to arise, would be not merely 
bootless but provocative and ultimately disastrous. Military 
force at home directed to this end is equally out of the ques- 
tion. And yet it is certain that we need some kind of neutral- 
ising agency. To my thinking the one sheet-anchor of defence 
for a country situated as is ours must be sought and will be 
found in the esteem and good will of our next-door neighbour 
and of the entire civilised world. There is and can be none 
other. And to win this by her exemplary conduct should be 
Mexico's first care. Morality and might are now contending 
for the mastery of the globe. The struggle is desperate and 
its outcome will affect us, together with all the lesser nations. 
If morality prevail, as we hope and desire, all will be well with 
Mexico, seeing that that is, and will continue to be, the key- 
stone of her own policy in the new era. But if force should 
win the palm, nothing can save the weaker peoples and we shall 
go under together with these, Switzerland offers a useful 
object-lesson in the difficult art of making friends and con- 
ciliating potential enemies. During the World War she was 
beset with tremendous perils and strong temptations but by 
dint of endeavouring honestly to discharge her duties towards 
each of her neighbours she compelled the respect of all. Mex- 
ico is in like manner wholly dependent upon the moral sym- 
pathy and support of the civihsed world and must, therefore, 
bend her efforts to acquire them. Consequently, it behooves 
her to see that the epoch of revolutionary changes passes into 
history, and to inaugurate an era of well established order and 
law." 

■^No Mexican whom I have met or heard of has discerned so 
clearly or defined so precisely the only helpful course of action 
open to his country. One of the aids to this discernment is 
the accurate perspective in which the new President visualises 
the history of his native land and foreshadows its potential fu- 
ture. He is wont as we saw to contemplate Mexico as a part 
of the great human family which, although still in process of 
formation, may be looked upon already as a reality for all the 



256 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

purposes of a far-sighted national and international policy. 
His mental picture of the country is not marred by the slightest 
tinge of that chauvinism whcih inspires the writings and dis- 
courses of some of his countrymen. There is neither misti- 
ness in his perception nor vacillation in his action. Thus he is 
keenly mindful of the noteworthy part played by the United 
States in supporting the Mexicans against their Spanish mas- 
ters and likewise of the undeniable boons bestowed upon his 
fellow countrymen by the band of enterprising pioneers from 
the great northern Republic and from European lands who dis- 
covered and developed Mexico's mineral and agricultural re- 
sources. Of these services he always speaks with gratitude, 
the sincerity of which is vouched for by his earnest desire to 
secure the friendly co-operation of those same foreign peoples 
in the coming work of reorganisation. For he regards Mex- 
ico, the wealth of its lands and the still undeveloped energies 
of its population as a trust for humanity. Nor does he ever 
fail, when discussing these matters with his countrymen, to 
emphasise the deciding fact that unless those material and 
spiritual resources are rationally exploited and made available 
so that they may be duly shared with humanity at large, they 
are certain to be fructified by others who have the will and 
the power to make prompt and proper use of them. And it is 
not only the riches of the soil and subsoil that must thus be de- 
veloped and turned into the common stock. — the energies of 
the people, their mental and moral capacities which have for 
ages been artificially checked and dwarfed must likewise be 
cultivated, disciplined and fitted for their part in the task of 
national reconstruction and internatic^nal rearrangement. 
/^ In a word. General Obregon keeps a death grip on a politi- 
cal faith calculated to awaken a response from spiritual depths 
never reached by any of his predecessors. His detestation of 
war as a .satisfactory method of settling disputes is worthy of 
the most enthusiastic pacifist and comes with immense force 
from the successful military leader who put down anarchy 
and is thoroughly conversant with the generous selflessness 
and lofty altruism which so often characterise the soldier in 
the field. Force, bloodshed and every kind of destructiveness 



OBREGON'S TASKS 257 

are abominations to him. He sees in them the fetters that 
have kept his country from moving forward with the progres- 
sive races and these from reaching still distant goals. And 
the lesson drawn from his own experience which he yearns to 
impress upon his fellow countrymen is that respect for law, a 
certain degree of self-abnegation for the common good, and 
the substitution of moral relationship in the dealings of man 
with man and nation with nation for the savage state of na- 
ture, constitute the only solid basis for that process of renova- 
tion which is Mexico's last hope. On this foundation Presi- 
dent Obregon is minded to build up his policy. But unless he 
is ably seconded by men of his own stamp and by the people 
at large he may not succeed. In any and every case, however, 
he will play his part worthily to the end. To employ another 
Turkish saying, if he must drown it will be in clear water. 

But however comprehensive and statesmanlike Obregon's 
programme of domestic reforms may be, the real work of re- 
construction can hardly even be started until and unless the 
misunderstandings between Mexico and the United States are 
cleared away. And in this process the next move depends 
upon the latter country, which has had all its grounded claims 
recognised and is now holding out for what can add nothing to 
its own legitimate satisfaction and would utterly ruin Mexico's 
last hope of regeneration. 

Justice is another of the public functions the administration 
of which the new President is intent on rendering simpler, 
speedier and sounder. The matter is fundamental. No State 
can thrive for long in which the tribunals and judges lack the 
confidence of the people. Destroy that confidence and you 
have struck a deadly blow at the very heart of the organism. 
And justice in Mexico has hitherto been open to grave charges. 
The Supreme Court itself has long been known to be swayed 
oy the Executive. It was thus even in the time of Porfirio 
Diaz. He often influenced it in order to secure such decisions 
is seemed to him just and possibly were so. It is worth noting 
hat the American press which has recently laid stress^ on the 

^ See Articles in the Philadelphia Public Ledger and other periodicals 
)y Mr. Stephen Bonsai, for example. 



I 



258 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

need for this reform had no complaints to make on the sub- 
ject so long as the irregularities were committed in favour of 
their own countrymen. It is only the clamour of the latter 
that has called forth its scathing criticism and vehement con- 
demnation. So long as the sufferers were merely the natives, 
justice found no champion outside their country. Its cause be- 
comes worthy of vindication only when bound up with the in- 
terests of foreign companies and influential individuals. Con- 
sidering the moral, intellectual and political anarchy in which 
the population existed for so many years, one could not rea- 
sonably have expected the administration of justice to have es- 
caped unscathed. One does not look for hot water under the 
ice. "Why is your neck crooked?" some one inquired of the 
camel. "What have I straight?" was the answer. 

Judicial procedure too is antiquated, complex and abounds 
in delays, — all drawbacks which favour the law-breaker and 
the wealthy and often defeat the ends of justice. It has also 
called into being a band of unscrupulous pettifogging lawyers 
whose principal function is to frustrate the intentions of the 
lawgivers. And they very often succeed. 

The agrarian and labour ferment throughout the country 
could be satisfactorily disposed of were the demands of the 
discontented elements prompted by intelligent self-interest and 
moderated by a sense of equity. And in all cases in which 
they answer to this description they are being settled promptly 
and fairly. For General Obregon's views on both subjects 
are eminently sane. He favours a just equilibrium of labour, 
capital and intelligence, three factors all equally indispensable 
to the success of industry and agriculture and none of which 
can be eliminated without serious damage to the community. 
But in many cases the demands spring from a different source 
and cannot be complied with economically, nor could they be 
settled with finality even were compliance possible. One 
branch of the movement is akin to bolshevism in its origin, 
subversive in its aims and disastrous in its methods. But like 
most of Mexico's tribulations it hails from abroad. It was 
planned and is fostered mainly by foreigners who are neither 
workmen, artisans nor husbandmen but professional agitators. 



OBREGON'S TASKS 259 

who scatter broadcast leaflets and booklets of the most sedi- 
tious nature plausibly written and cleverly adapted to the com- 
prehension of working men, peasants, soldiers and the semi- 
intellectual youth of the country. 

By way of indulging my curiosity about the relation be- 
tween elementary education and the working of universal suf- 
frage I made inquiries in the most advanced State of the Re- 
public, Tamaulipas, which offers a fair test. Tamaulipas has 
more schools in proportion to its population and has had them 
for a longer period than any other State of the Union. As 
far back as the year 1884 an educational law was enacted there 
and is still in force which gave a considerable impetus to 
schools. Well, I ascertained that the effects of this praise- 
worthy initiative had been frustrated by the revolutionary ex- 
cesses to such a degree that during the elections of 1920 no 
votes could be legally recorded in certain cantons for lack of 
overseers able to read and write. The law requires that two 
men who can read and write be appointed in every canton to 
preside at the voting. But in several of these cantons, for in- 
stance in that of Jaumave which is not far from the capital of 
the State, there were not two men to be found who could fulfil 
this condition. And in consequence polling booths could not 
be opened there. In other places where two citizens credited 
with these attainments were available, it happened that they 
did not understand what they read and fell into various irreg- 
ularities which warranted the annulment of the elections. Ow- 
ing to the frequent occurrence of similar illegalities, I am as- 
sured, many an election can be annulled at will, and as the re- 
turns are submitted to the Chamber itself for confirmation or 
invalidation, it is most often party interest that decides. It is 
affirmed that a formal compact exists between a party in one 
of the houses of the legislature and certain members of that 
body in virtue of which the latter are invariably declared legally 
elected no matter how few votes they may have received and 
that in consequence some of these privileged democrats spare 
themselves the trouble and expense of an electioneering' cam- 
paign, content themselves with a minority of the votes how- 
ever small and get themselves elected by their friends in the 



260 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

legislature by having the votes given to their opponents nulli- 
fied on technical grounds. 

In Mexico a smaller percentage of the population than in 
Belgium grasps the significance of the suffrage, knows how to 
exercise it or is willing to go to the polls. The remedy for 
this lies either in disfranchising illiterates or educating them 
at high pressure as ignorant immigrants are being instructed 
in the United States. The latter alternative is now being tried 
under adverse conditions but with energy and perseverence.^ 

At the Constituent Assembly of Queretaro where the Con- 
stitution was drafted and adopted, one representative whose 
name deserves to be remembered, General Esteban Calderon, 
insisted on the necessity of restricting the suffrage to those who 
were qualified to exercise it and made a concrete proposal to 
this effect. But in that Assembly of enthusiasts the voice of 
this realist was drowned in dithyrambic phrases. It has since 
been affirmed that the millions of illiterate and listless voters 
constitute a grave peril to the State.^ They are said to be the 
unconscious tools of scheming agitators who foment local 
tumults and lawlessness in the intervals of revolutionary up- 
heavals. It is argued that they are not only themselves in- 
capable of voting deliberately but are active in nullifying the 
suffrage of those who are fully qualified to exercise it. The 
little Republic of Guatemala was until recently face to face 
with the same problem. Of its two and a half million in- 
habitants some two millions are imperfectly civilised abori- 
gines who are wanting in the most rudimentary notions about 
governance and policy. But the Guatemaltecans recently ex- 
cluded all illiterates from the voting booths, on the principle 
that it is more democratic to prepare voters in advance for 
the exercise of their rig'hts than to render those rights nuga- 
tory by bestowing them upon individuals who cannot com- 
prehend them, still less exercise them rationally.* 

- A campaijTn afjainst illiteracy is beiriR carried on under the joint 
direction of President Obrepon and the Rector of the University. 

■' Italian statesmen, it is fair to remember, think otherwise. Shortly 
before the war Premier Giolitti had a bill passed in both houses of the 
lepislature, by which several millions of illiterates were admitted to 
the vote. 
* See El Universal, 27 Jan. 1921. 



OBREGON'S TASKS 261 

According to the Mexican Constitution, each of the federal 
entities is a sovereign State, with its legislature, elective Gov- 
ernor, Secretary and the usual host of employees who absorb 
the substance of the people and not only give nothing valuable 
in return but very often open the sluices for the revolutionary 
flood to sweep away the produce of labour and thrift. Two 
of these sovereign States have an insignificant population of 
78,000 and 85,000 souls respectively,^ four of them less than 
200,000 f nine have more than 200,000 but less than half a mil- 
lion. In five States the population exceeds 500,000 without 
totalling one million and in the whole Republic only four 
States can boast of a million inhabitants. Now if one deducts, 
as is meet, from these numbers the women, the numerous chil- 
dren, and the still more numerous illiterates, it will be seen 
that the dangerous instrument — in this case, weapon — of 
power is in the hands of a few, of ten-times harebrained indi- 
viduals who are lured by the two-fold prospect of lording it 
over their next-door neighbours and making a comfortable live- 
lihood without having put forth any exertion to deserve a 
Government post or even qualified themselves to occupy it. 
Many of these State dignitaries are primitive beings in the full 
sense of the term who are incapable of perceiving either the 
fatuity of their aspirations or the tragi-comedy of their fail- 
ure. Hardihood they possess in the superlative degree, the 
hardihood to trample under foot every law and to ride rough- 
shod over every right in maintaining their own privileges. 
Every one of these arbitrary dispensers of emoluments and 
offices is a sort of tsarlet at the head of a little army of State 
functionaries who in turn have their deputies and substitutes 
and occasionally their Pretorian guards. Thus Mexico is bur- 
dened with over thirty separate Governments and specifically 
political parliaments besides the various municipalities which 
are also centres of political and other machinations. 

In Yucatan the recent elections let loose passions suggestive 
of prehistoric ages. The best organised and most resolute 
party there were the so-called Socialists and they distinguished 

° Colima and Campeche. 

« Aguascalientes, Morelos, Tabasco and Nayarit. 



262 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

themselves by mowing down their political adversaries with 
rifles, blowing them up with dynamite, hewing them with 
hatchets, clubbing them to death with sticks, carrying their 
dead bodies on poles, reducing their dwellings to ashes and 
sending disguised gendarmes to impersonate voters. General 
Calles himself exclaimed: "It looks as though the competitors 
in the struggle now going forward were not human beings but 
beasts, such is the wild fury with which they attack, maim and 
slaughter each other."^ Yucatan, it is fair to add, is an ex- 
ception. Its lamentable plight is the result of special condi- 
tions with which we are not now concerned. But the evils of 
the federal system are widespread and paralysing. 

Two Constitutional reforms then are peremptorily called 
for: the qualification of the citizen for the franchise, and the 
strengthening and tightening of the bonds between the people 
and the Government by the abolition of the sovereignty of the 
federal units and the substitution of Municipalities which, if 
they are first adequately reformed, can discharge many of the 
State functions much more .satisfactorily and with a great deal 
less friction. 

In the Republic there cannot be a smoothly working State so 
long as the provinces continue to enjoy the rights of sovereign 
communities. The sovereignty of these different centres pro- 
motes regionalism, fosters distracting feuds, hinders the 
growth of common interests and the pursuit of common pur- 
poses and may, at any of the critical conjunctures in which 
Mexican history abounds, lead to separatism and disintegra- 
tion. In favour of the autonomy of a number of petty States 
each containing only the population of a European parish, 
composed largely of poverty-stricken individuals dispersed 
over a vast territory, devoid of political knowledge and train- 
ing and even of elementary instruction, the grounds adduced 
were never convincing. And they are so weak to-day as hardly 
to need refutation. For the federal units are admittedly the 
germ centres of the revolutionary fever which has for long 
been consuming the energies of the population. 

During the brief period that has passed since his inaugura* 
''Excelsior and other journals of the capital, November g, 19201 



OBKEGON'S TASKS 263 

tion the new President has swept away some of the worst 
abuses, drafted a series of excellent schemes which are grad- 
ually being inscribed on the statute book and accomplished 
more in the direction of reforms than was done by the best of 
his predecessors during their whole term of office. The mas- 
terly way in which he checkmated the railway strikers won for 
him a high tribute of universal praise. He has closed gam- 
bling houses and other haunts of vice, has begun to purge the 
prisons which were seminaries of crime and has adopted a 
series of measures for the reformation of criminals. Further, 
he has issued a number of hygienic regulations in various 
parts of the Republic and has put disinfecting apparatus in 
forty towns and the principal ports. He has begun the irri- 
gation of vast tracts of land in Guanajuato, framed a law for 
disposing of the agrarian movement, given orders for the 
preservation and expansion of ancient crafts and industries, 
laid extensive plans for improving communications by land 
and water, bettered the railway services and laid a bill for the 
creation of a merchant marine before Congress. The problems 
of colonisation by foreign immigrants has also received care- 
ful attention and comprehensive arrangements have already 
been made for the sifting, classification and reception of many 
thousands of husbandmen from Canada, Italy, Germany, Aus- 
tria and other countries, to whom considerable inducements 
are being offered during the first years of their residence in 
the Republic. The army is being rapidly demobilised and 
has already been reduced to fifty thousand men, the strength 
adequate for a minor State whose sheet-anchor of safety is 
henceforward to be the moral support of the civilised world. 
The numerous misunderstandings with foreign govern- 
ments, corporations and citizens have likewise been closely 
studied in a spirit' of equity and with a sincere desire to deal 
fairly by all. The national debt has been recognised and means 
considered for resuming payment of the interest. A plan for 
meeting the demands of foreign residents who sustained losses 

8 It is right to say that this scheme was originally thought out by Car- 
ranza who first laid down the principle involved. General Obregon has 
merely ••esolved to redeem the promises of his predecessor. 



264 MEXICO OX THE VERGE 

during the Revolution has also been formulated and will be 
duly acted upon/ 

This list of tasks achieved or undertaken in the brief span 
of two months might be further expanded, but it is sufficient 
to indicate the sincerity of purpose, the intenseness of the 
labour and the rapidity of method which the new President 
has displayed. He is evidently conscious that the events of 
his first year of office will impart its definite cast to the con- 
juncture which will make the Mexican Republic or unmake it. 
If, as one ardently hopes, his quickness of political intuition 
match his popularity and be equalled by his power, the country 
will be saved from within and may look forward to a period 
of material prosperity and cultural progress. He is working 
with the knowledge that there is no time to be lost. The march 
of events is uncommonly swift. The Mexican Government 
can no more be slow and sure than can a watch. This is well 
understood by the President but not by the bulk of Mexican 
demagogues who have yet to exchange the temper and the 
dialect of parochial politics for the classic language of con- 
structive statesmanship. Delay or vacillation may spell disas- 
ter, and when Fate arrives on the scene the most genial states- 
man becomes a mere puppet. 

On one of our journeys I remarked to General Obregon 
that an idealist who is this and nothing more can afford to dis- 
pense with concrete success and content himself with sowing 
that others may reap, but that a reforming statesman must 
necessarily be able to point to tangible results. Soon after- 
wards he was publicly congratulated by an orator on his elec- 
toral triumph, whereupon he replied : "For the people it is in- 
deed a triumph to have cast off the shackles of the dictatorship 
and I am happy to have had a hand in bringing that about. 
My election, however, does not give me the feeling of being in 
a triumphal chariot but rather that of being harnessed to the 
wagon of the nation. I am on probation. For my triumph 
I must look not to the day on which I was diosen but to the 
hour when I lay down office and then only if I am able to ask 
the people without misgivings as to their answer: 'Have I 
done my duty and served you faithfully according to my lights 
and possibilities?' " 



■ CHAPTER XXI 
The Fall From Grace in Haiti V^ 

The experiment made by the United States in Haiti has 
burned itself into the souls of all Central Americans. Mexico 
in particular has special grounds for apprehension. Presi- 
dent Zamor of Haiti was put through the mill which is now 
believed to be awaiting some Mexican President less resolute 
and powerful than Obregon. He was offered help from the 
United States to keep himself in power, but refused to com- 
promise the independence of his country and resigned.^ 

Haiti, like Mexico, was summoned to sign a treaty with 
the United States, but the Haitian Senate refused. The new 
President was denied recognition unless he first sent a Com- 
mission to Washington for the purpose of signing "satisfac- 
tory protocols" relating to various questions, notably a con- 
vention for the control of the Haitian custom houses with 
the United States. The same condition confronts Mexico, as 
we gather from the scheme propounded by the international 
committee of bankers,^ which by a curious coincidence is of 
the same mind as Mr. Fall and the National Association for 
the Protection of American Rights in Mexico. In the pro- 
posal for the refunding of Mexico's debt and the supplying 
of capital for new developments we find among the condi- 
tions "the pledging of the national customs revenue as secu- 
rity for the whole debt, and the administration of the cus- 
toms revenue by a joint commission or international board of 
representatives of the United States and Mexico." ^ In other 
words, what is planned is a financial and political pro- 
tectorate, in which the bankers will hold the natural resources 
of the country and the railroads, expending their "loans" 

1 October 29th, 1914. 

2 It consists of ten American, five French and five British bankers. 

3 I learn that it has been somewhat modified since and that the Banco 
Nacional would be substituted for the joint commission. 

265 



266 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

to promote their own enterprises, where the bankers collect 
the revenues, the bankers supervise the disbursements, the 
bankers dictate the poHcies of a puppet government — their 
rule made good by the armed might of the American people.* 

The entire story of the dealings of the United States with 
Haiti from the year 191 4 to the present day deserves to be 
made known throughout the length and the breadth of the 
globe, in the interests of the American people whose fair 
name they tarnish. Some of the alleged horrors, had they 
been perpetrated by a Tsarist Government against Poles or 
Jews or revolutionists, would have provoked a howl of in- 
dignation among civilised peoples. Does the circumstance 
that they are charged against a democratic Republic which 
aspires to the moral leadership of the world purge them of 
their iniquitous character? "No graver indictment of an 
American administration," writes an honest New York press 
organ, "has ever been made. . . . The atrocities . . . murder 
of women and children, wholesale killing of prisoners, torture 
with red-hot irons, the 'water-cure,' arson, robbery . . . con- 
stitute an everlasting stain on American honour." ^ 

The initial procedure of the United States towards Haiti 
resembles in most essentials the methods employed against 
Mexico and includes the same systematic misleading propa- 
ganda, the same financial thumb-screw, a similar demand for 
a treaty or convention for the purpose of strengthening "the 
amity existing between them by the most cordial co-operation 
in measures for their common advantag>e." The United 
States Government demanded the control of the Haitian cus- 
tom houses and the right to exercise a veto against future 
modifications of customs duties. The Haitian Government, 
like the Obregon administration, declined to sign such a cove- 
nant on the ground that it would be tantamount to placing 
the Republic under a foreign protectorate.*' Thereupon the 

■* See Article by J. K. Turner in the New York Nation, June ist, 1921. 

J' The Nation, May l8th, 1921. 

"On December ig, 1014. These and the following details are taken 
from a Memoir presented on the part of the Repubh'c of Haiti to the 
Washington State Department and to the Senate Foreign Relations Com- 
mittee on May 5th, 1921. 



THE FALL FROM GRACE IN HAITI 267 

American Minister notified the Haitian authorities that his 
Government would not insist upon the treaty. 

"Two days previous to this communication from Mr. Bailly- 
Blanchard, in order to force the Haitian Government to ac- 
cept the control of the custom houses by systematically de- 
priving it of financial resources, American marines carried ofr 
the strong-boxes of the National Bank of the Republic of 
Haiti in broad daylight and took on board the gunboat Machias 
a sum of $500,000 belonging to the RepubHc of Haiti and 
destined to be used for the redemption of paper money. In 
his notes of December 19 and 26 the State Secretary of For- 
eign Affairs asked in vain for explanations from the United 
States Legation regarding this military kidnapping of the 
funds of the Haitian Treasury. This amount is still in the 
United States, where it was transported and deposited in a 
New York bank. 

"On July 29 the population awoke to learn that the terri- 
tory of Haiti was invaded by American forces which had 
landed at the extreme south of the city the night before. 
Hundreds and soon thousands of American marines occu- 
pied the town and disarmed the surprised Haitians who were 
completely bowled over by the terrible events of the last two 
days — and so the American forces did not meet with any 
resistance from the population. Two weeks passed, during 
which the landed forces succeeded in getting control of Port- 
au-Prince and its immediate vicinity. Meanwhile other Amer- 
ican troops had occupied the city of Cap-Haitien, in the 
northern part of the country. On August 12, 191 5, after 
numerous conferences between leading members of the Hai- 
tian Chamber and Senate and the American naval authorities, 
at the United States Legation and elsewhere, a Presidential 
election was held by permission of the Occupation, and M. 
Dartiguenave, president of the Senate, was elected, the ma- 
jority of the members of the two houses agreeing tO' support 
him. It was made clear that the choice of M. Dartiguenave 
was essentially agreeable to the American Occupation, He 
was therefore elected for a term of seven years in accordance 
with the Haitian Constitution then in force. 



268 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

"Two days after the establishment of the new Government, 
Mr. Robert Beale Davis, Jr., American charge d'affaires, in 
the name of his Government, presented to President Dartigue- 
nave a project for a treaty. This project was accompanied 
by a memorandum in which the President was informed 'that 
the State Department of Washington expected that the Hai- 
tian National Assembly, warranting the sincerity and the in- 
terest of the Plaitians, would immediately pass a resolution 
authorising the President of Haiti to accept the proposed 
treaty without modification.' Since this request indicated a 
certain ignorance of Haitian constitutional practice, as re- 
gards the negotiations of treaties, the Government hastened 
to call Mr, Davis' attention to the article of the Constitution 
relating to this subject, and showed him that the President 
of Haiti did not need special authority of the Chambers to 
negotiate and sign treaties with a foreign Power. 

"The American charge d'affaires, after examining the con- 
stitutional text, readily acknowledged it and withdrew. Imag- 
ine the surprise of the Government on receiving the next day 
a threatening note signed by the charge d'affaires, insisting 
that the resolution indicated in the memorandum should be 
passed by the Haitian Chambers, and setting in the form of 
an ultimatum a time limit within which the resolution must 
be passed." 

The demand on Mexico is of the self-same character as 
that which was presented to Haiti. The State Department 
in Washington virtually said : "We care nothing about your 
Constitution, nor whether your President is or is not author- 
ised by it to sign treaties. We insist on his signing a treaty 
and our will must be done by hook or by crook." ^ 

And yet when the Italians were massacred in New Orleans 
and the Italian Government requested the Federal Govern- 
ment in Washington to see that the murderers were duly pun- 
ished, it pleaded its inability under the Constitution, which 
bestows sovereignty in such matters on the individual state. 
If we imagine Italy, Japan and Russia urging the American 
Government to violate the Constitution or modify it on pain 

'' It was signed in September, 1915. 



THE FALL FROM GRACE IN HAITI 269 

of being economically boycotted, we shall be able to under- 
stand the feelings of Mexicans. 

"The Haitian Government, after the landing of the Amer- 
ican troops, was actually nothing more than a purely nominal 
government. It had neither the power to enforce its au- 
thority, nor finances. The American military authorities had 
taken possession of the custom houses, had invaded the terri- 
tory of the nation, and, by the establishment of martial courts, 
had practically suppressed the Haitian administration of jus- 
tice. The protests of the Government against these acts of 
interference in internal politics had remained a dead letter. 
And it was 'to put an end to these difficulties and to obtain 
the liberation of the territory that was formally promised' 
that it had to yield." 

The treaty of "friendship" thus imposed by brute force 
was observed by the Haitians who had no choice but to 
carry it out. The United States Government being free 
availed themselves of their liberty and broke it. This is a 
grave charge tO' levy against the great Republic which is con- 
tinually preaching the sacredness of public treaties and the 
immutability of service contracts in Mexico. But the Haitians 
substantiate their charges by striking facts. "Instead of sim- 
ply keeping to the regime fixed by the treaty, the Haitian 
Government was constantly obliged by the American offi- 
cials to take unjustified initiatives. It was forced to accept 
the placing of American superintendents in charge of the postal 
service and of the Ministry of Public Education, with salaries 
equal to, and in some cases even higher than, those of the 
State Secretaries. 

"At the municipal councils it was obliged to appoint so- 
called council officers who had actually the exclusive admin- 
istration of the communes and absolute control of municipal 
affairs, including revenues and expenses. This state of affairs 
not provided for in the treaty gave rise to regrettable con- 
flicts. When a Council officer (American) was confronted 
by an administrator of finances and provisional prefect (Hai- 
tian official) wishing to investigate the accounts of the com- 
mune, as the law obliges him to do, it always ended either 



270 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

with the forced silence of the Haitian official or with all 
kinds of difficulties which he had to face simply because he 
was trying to do his duty." 

What Mexicans had to expect from the "police force" 
which was to have maintained 'peace and order' in Tampico 
when the two gunboats were despatched thither by the United 
States Navy Department in July, 192 1, was foreshadowed by 
what a similar force effected in Haiti. "Internal peace could 
not be preserved" — the Alemoir goes on to say — "because the 
permanent and brutal violation of individual rights of Hai- 
tian citizens was a perpetual provocation to revolt, because 
the terrible military despotism which has ruled in Haiti for 
the last six years has not created and could not create for 
the Haitian people that security which it was hoped the ap- 
plication of the treaty would bring about. Among other 
things, it is sufficient to call attention here to the system of 
corvee, that is to say, forced unpaid labour on public roads, 
imposed for military purposes upon the Haitian peasant. This 
will give some idea of why the gendarmerie, aided and en- 
couraged by the American Occupation, instead of assuring 
respect for individual rights, caused the revolt known as 
the revolt of the Cacos for the repression of which so many 
useless atrocities were committed by the marines in our un- 
happy country. This gendarmerie in spite of the aid of the 
marines of the Occupation and the use of the most modem 
armament (machine guns, military planes, armoured cars, 
etc.) was never able, by purely military methods, to contend 
with these undisciplined and unarmed bands known as Cacos. 
Therefore, it is ineffective. And if it is ineffective it is be- 
cause, in spite of the repeated warnings of the Government, 
the personnel which composes it was not chosen as it should 
have been. In fact, it contains men 'wanted' by the Haitian 
courts for criminal acts (robberies, murders, etc.) Exam- 
ination of the archives of the Ministries of the Interior and 
of Justice of Haiti will throw light on this subject." 

Thus to entrust common criminals with the work of pre- 
venting crime and advancing the cause of moralitv is surely 
not in harmony with the methods approved by the United 



THE FALL FHOM GRACE IN HAITI 271 

States Government. It is like casting out devils by Beelzebub. 

"Official documents of Haiti," the Memoir continues, 
"clearly confirm that the treaty of September i6th, 19 15, 
has never been carried out by the American Government." 
One could hardly credit such a statement were not the facts 
on which it is based clear and incontrovertible. All the greater 
is the amazement of Mexican politicians at the consuming de- 
sire of the State Department in Washington to have another 
treaty to experiment with in Mexico and to get it signed be- 
fore recognising the Obregon Government. The people of 
the United States in whose name such conventions are made 
cannot be aware of these damaging facts which place it in the 
unenviable position of competing with Carranza and out- 
stripping him in the race. 

The avowed aims of the United States Government in Mex- 
ico are exactly the same as those which moved it to hasten 
to the help of Haiti. They were enumerated in the preamble 
to the Haitian treaty as "the maintenance of public peace and 
the establishment of the finances on a sound basis and the 
economic development of Haiti." 

How these voluntarily assumed obligations were carried 
out by the official representatives of the great American 
democracy is set forth by the Haitian people as follows : 

"No effective aid has been brought to Haiti for the develop- 
ment of its agricultural and industrial resources, and no con- 
structive measure has been proposed for the purpose of plac- 
ing its finances on a really solid basis. 

"By the terms of Article 2, paragraph 8, of the convention, 
the President of Haiti appoints, upon the nomination of the 
President of the United States, a Financial Adviser who will 
be an official attached to the Ministry of Finances. The ad- 
viser is then a Haitian official paid $10,000 (American gold) 
annually by the Haitian public treasury. But in reality the 
Financial Adviser is not responsible to the Haitian Govern- 
ment. On the contrary, his actions indicate his purpose to 
subject it to his will. 

"Numerous facts show the omnipotence which the Financial 
Adviser arrogates to himself. Nothing more strikingly illus- 



272 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

trates this than the confiscation by the Financial Adviser, 
with the support of the American Minister, of the salaries 
of the President of the Republic, the State Secretaries and 
the meml)ers of the Legislative Council, because the Govern- 
ment had refused to insert in the contract of the National 
Bank of Haiti (which is controlled by the National City Bank 
of New York), a clause prohibiting the importation into Haiti 
of foreign gold coins, which the Financial Adviser wanted to 
force upon them. 

"If there be any special kind of help which the United States 
is better qualified to give than any other nation on the globe 
it is financial. And the Convention with Haiti provided for 
this expressly. Article II says : 

" 'The (American) Financial Adviser shall inquire into the 
validity of the debts of the Republic, shall keep the two Gov- 
ernments informed regarding all future debts, shall recom- 
mend improved methods of collecting and applying the rev- 
enues, and shall make such recommendations to the State 
Secretary for Finances as are judged necessary for the well- 
being and prosperity of the Republic' . . . No inquiry into 
the validity of our debts has been made. No improved 
method of collecting the revenues has been recommended. 
No recommendation for the well-being and prosperity of 
the Republic has yet been made to the Haitian Govern- 
ment. 

"Now we come to the strangest phase of the situation from 
the point of view of the Haitian Government; not only have 
American officials done nothing that could have lx?en done 
for the intellectual development and economic prosperity of 
the country, but they oppose the Government's work in this 
direction. Numerous projects for laws dealing with tlie 
finances, agriculture, public education, administrative and rural 
organisations meet with either the direct opposition of the 
American officials, or lie unanswered in the archives of the 
American Legation. 

"Particular resistance is made to projects dealing unth the 
education of the people, such as for the preparation of teachers 



THE FALL FROM GRACE IN HAITI 273 

for primary education, industrial and agricultural schools, 
secondary or higher education, and for the construction of 
school buildings. 

"... The Financial Adviser 'refused appropriations for 
three Associate Professors from the University of France 
who were offered to the Haitian Government by the French 
Government for the Lycee of Port-au-Prince.' " 

Those and other charges against the American forces of 
occupation are superlatively damaging. A Naval Court of 
Inquiry was called for and sent to the country, but, accord- 
ing to the Memoir, "all Haitians who had anything to say 
regarding the numerous cases of murder, brutality, robbery, 
rape, arson, etc., that is, Haitians who wished to convince the 
Court of Inquiry of the way in which the forces of the Occu- 
pation had carried out their duty in Haiti," were systemat- 
ically excluded. Many of them have published in the press 
of Haiti the letters which they sent to the Court demanding 
to be heard. . . . "Witnesses testified on the case of Lieut. 
Lang, accused of having killed three prisoners with his own 
hand at Hinche, making them go out of the prison one at a 
time, firing a revolver shot in the back of each one. . . . 

"In Haiti numberless abominable crimes have been com- 
mitted. To give some idea of their horror we cite only a few 
cases made public through the press which the Naval Court 
did not feel the need to investigate. 

"Execution by the Marines of Joseph Marseille and his two 
sons, Michel and Estima Marseille, of Princivil Mesadieux, 
Baye Section, District of Mirebalais; assassination by the 
marines of Guerrier Josaphat and one of his children, aged 
14, in his own house, acts denounced by M. Louis Charles, 
Sr., December 8, 1920. 

"Arrest by an American officer, and mysterious disappear- 
ance of M. Charrite Fleuristone, former school inspector at 
Chappelle, District of Saint Marc. He was arrested in the 
first part of 19 19, at the same time as MM. Jean Baptiste 
and Clement Clerjeune. 

"At Marin, District of Mirebalais, in December, 1919, as- 



274 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

sassination and mutilation of Joseph Duclerc, a respectable 
old man of sixty, by marines and gendarmes. After the crime 
they burned his cottage. 

"At the same time and in the same section the same group 
fired on a school-teacher and wounded her in the mouth. 
She managed to escape. The marines and gendarmes burned 
her house as well as everything that went with it. They were 
accompanied by an American officer, a lieutenant, whose name 
can be established by an investigation, 

"Near Marin, at Collier, District of Mirebalais, the same 
band cut the head off a blind man named Neis, 25 years old, 
and did the same thing to a child who was with him, named 
Jules Louisville. 

"On the same day (in January, 1919) the same band of 
marines and gendarmes surprised Esca Estinfil in his house 
at Caye-Beau with his young sons. They shot all three, 
father and children. Then they robbed his house and burned 
it. Esca was a great planter, and had a large quantity of 
coffee stored, and a good sum of money ready for com- 
mercial transactions. 

"On January 25, 1919, at 'Savane Longue' near Marin, a 
group of marines and gendarmes coming from Terre-Rouge, 
District of Mirebalais, killed Hon. Aure Bayard, who was ill 
in bed. They pulled him from his bed and shot him through 
and through. The house was robbed and burned. Then 
they forced Madame Aure Bayard, by striking her with the 
butt ends of their rifles, to take the things that they had just 
stolen and carry them along with them. It was not until the 
next day that the poor woman could render her last services 
to her husband. 

"On January 30th some marines and gendarmes led by 
spies named Neis (des Orangers) and Aure Fleury (du Carre- 
four grand-mat), killed a pregnant woman in a place called 
Thomaus. The cottage was robbed. 

"In December, 19 19, .some marines and gendarmes coming 
from Saut d'Eau Dr Mirebalais arrived at the second station 
of the Crochus, District of Mircl)alais, and shot, at Beauvoir, 
Saint-Felix Geffratd, who lived with his two little daughters, 



THE FALL FROM GRACE IN HAITI 275 

aged 8 and 12 years. The terrified children managed to 
escape the shots of the assassins. 

"Bodily tortures were inflicted by the American captain 
of gendarmerie, Fitzgerald Brown, upon M. Polydor St. 
Pierre, clerk of the St. Marc Police Court, in the prison of 
that town. He was arrested on January 3, 19 19, on a false 
charge of theft, and was imprisoned for six months. Brown 
administered the 'water-cure' to him and burned his body 
with a red-hot iron ; to say nothing of the beatings and other 
tortures which he inflicted upon him, St. Pierre Vainly 
begged a hearing from the Naval Court of Inquiry. 

"Hanging of Fabre Yoyo from a mango tree on March 13, 
1919, at Pivert, on property belonging to the Orius Paultre 
family of St. Marc; execution on this same property this 
same day of two young boys of 14 and 15 years, Nicholas 
Yoyo and Salnave Chariot, by Captain Fitzgerald Brown. 

"Among the crimes perpetrated in the region of Hinche, 
Maissade, from 19 16 to 19 19, by Lieutenants Lang and Wil- 
liams, acts little known and denounced by M. Meresse Wooley, 
former Mayor of Hinche, on December 10, 1920, in the 
Courier Haitien, are the following: (i) M. Onexil hanged 
and burned alive in his house at Lauhaudiagne ; (2) execution 
of Madame Eucharice Cadichon at Mamon; (3) execution 
of Madame Romain Brigade at I'Hermitte near Maissade; 
(4) execution of Madame Prevoit with a baby of a few months 
at 'Savane-a-Lingue' on her own property. 

"In the prisons of Cap-Haitien, during the years 1918, 
1919 and 1920 more than four thousand prisoners died. 

"At Chabert, an American camp, 5,475 prisoners died dur- 
ing these three years, the average being five deaths a day. 

"At Cap-Haitien, in 19 19, eight corpses of prisoners a day 
were thrown into the pits. 

"Before American Occupation and the seizure of the prisons 
by the American officers the number of prisoners in the Cap- 
Haitien prison did not exceed on an average forty a year," 
The Memoir concludes as follows: "The Haitian Republic 
was the second nation of the New World — second only to 
the United States — to conquer its national independence. We 



276 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

have our own history, our own traditions, customs and na- 
tional spirit, our own institutions, laws, and social and polit- 
ical organization, our own culture, our own literature (French 
language), and our own religion. For in years the little 
Haitian nation has managed its own affairs; for in years it 
has made the necessary effort for its material, intellectual and 
moral development as well as any other nation — better than 
any other nation, because it has been from the first absolutely 
alone in its difficult task, without any aid from the outside, 
bearing with it along the harsh road of civilisation the glor- 
ious misery of its beginning. And then, one fine day, under 
the merest pretext, without any possible explanation or justifi- 
cation on the grounds of znolation of any American right or 
interest, American forces landed on our national territory and 
actually abolished the sovereignty and independence of the 
Haitian Republic. 

"We have just given an account of the chief aspects of the 
American Military Occupation in our countr}' since July 28, 

1915. 

"It is the most terrible regime of military autocracy which 

has ever been carried on in the name of the great American 
democracy. 

"The Haitian people, during these past five years, has 
passed through such sacrifices, tortures, destructions, humilia- 
tions, and misery as have never before been known in the 
course of its unhappy history. 

"The American Government, in spite of the attitude of 
wisdom, moderation, and even submission which it has always 
found in dealing with the Haitian Government, has never 
lived up to any of the agreements which it had solemnly en- 
tered into with regard to the Haitian people." 
^ Seldom has such a tremendous indictment been framed 
against the official representatives of any great people in mod- 
ern time^^. Compared with this selection of crimes said to have 
been committed in the name of the greatest democracy, the 
excesses perpetrated in Mexico during the whole heat of civil 
war and published by Mr. Fall, fade into relative insignificance. 
For in the latter case the misdeeds occurred during a ruthless 



THE FALL FROM GRACE IN HAITI 277 

struggle between two infuriated sections of the community, 
whereas in the other a group of culture-bearers entered the 
country in the name of humanity, tendered the hand of friend- 
ship to the people, struck up binding agreements which they 
never lived up to, were received with peaceful resignation and 
then, we are told, burned the houses and shot and tortured the 
inhabitants and destroyed the independence of the Republic. 
y^ And throughout this lugubrious document which, fair- 
minded Americans hope, will bring about a thorough investi- 
gation, one is confronted with the ominous refrain: "The 
American Government has never lived up to any of the agree- 
ments which it had solemnly entered into with regard to the 
Haitian people." 

It is easy to realise the effect which the warning note 
sounded by this historic Memoir must have had on Mexicans 
who fancied they saw their own turn coming next. And all 
the Latin-American Republics look with deep concern on the 
outcome of the Mexican situation, much as Ulysses regarded 
his plight in the cave of Polyphemus when his comrades were 
being devoured by the Cyclops one by one. Z'^-' 

The central defects, it seems to me, of those who frame the 
Mexican policy of the United States, lie in the oppressive 
narrowness of their horizon, their ignorance of the character 
and strivings of the Mexicans and their liability to be in- 
fluenced rather by the few restless wealth-hunters who uplift 
their voices in angry protest than by the humanitarian senti- 
ments of the inarticulate American people. There is no doubt 
that the American nation wishes well to Mexico and would 
willingly help her out of her present troubles. It is equally cer- 
tain that Secretary Hughes is animated by a sincere desire to 
remove all misunderstandings between the two Governments. 
And yet despite these laudable intentions we see the ill-fated 
Republic being slowly strangled to death because the heads of 
the State Department in Washington having put gyves on its 
feet and manacles on its hands insist on its attuning its progress 
towards normal international life to the quick march of Yan- 
kee Doodle. 

This matter of studying the psychology of the neighbour- 



278 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

ing countries with which they have continually to deal is well 
worth the attention of American statesmen, some of whom 
may have been surprised to leam that Mr. Henry Lane Wilson, 
who was once Ambassador in Mexico, contrived to earn the 
resentment not only of Mexicans but, it is also reported, of 
Latin-Americans generally.** Secretary Hughes in a speech at 
an Odd Fellow meeting went to the heart of the matter when, 
in paying a tribute to fraternities, he said : "I wish nations 
might be committed to the same fraternal relations . . . out of 
fraternity comes understanding, and if nations pKDSsessed un- 
derstanding and sought to deal fraternally with one another, 
they could dwell together as the LT'nited States and Canada 
have for more than a century without fortifications along 
thousands of miles of border."^ 

If we compare those wise words with the deeds of which 
Haiti, Santo Domingo and other neighbouring States com- 
plain and with the impression produced by the United States 
foreign policy abroad, the practical conclusion stands out that 
between saying and doing there is a chasm. The Filipinos, 
despite petitions, arguments, protests and patience,*** have not 
yet been vouchsafed their long-promised independence. Mex- 
ico is being starved into bolshevism or submission not only 
without sinister Intent but for her own good and the highest 
interests of humanity. On the other hand the oppressive mis- 
rule which afflicts Venezuela is actually approved by the United 
States' official representative there. Porto Rico's claims to In- 
dependence go unheeded. Santo Domingo Is mourning the loss 
of her sovereignty as Irreparable. Tn Spain Deputy A. 
Barcia y Trelles writes : "There are notorious reasons for af- 
firming that the United States Is going ahead with dissimula- 
tion and preparing for the total domination of the Continent 
across the Atlantic. Conditions changed radically with the 

•"According to a report which has reached officials here." writes the 
Mexican Post, "King Victor Emnnnel of Italy has notified the State De- 
partment of the United States that Henry Lane Wilson who was ap- 
pointed Ambassador to Italy is a persona non-grata." Cf. Mexican Post, 

Jlllv l6, I02T. 

" Speech delivered on April 2<ith, 1021. 

'" So-- Letter of the Director of the Philippine Press Bureau in the 
New York Times, June 26th, 1921. 



THE FALL FROM GRACE IN HAITI 279 

World War. The strength and economic power of Europe 
in the new Continent, if not to-day, will in the very near fu- 
ture be inferior to those of North A'merica."^^ 

"You are always talking to me of principles," Tsar Alexan- 
der I once remarked to Talleyrand. "As if your public law 
were anything to me ; I do not know what it means. What do 
you suppose that all your parchments and your treaties sig- 
nify to me?" From the lips of a Russian autocrat these words 
appear natural if anti-social. To-day there is probably not 
one civilised power on the globe which would not promptly dis- 
miss and disavow any of its representatives abroad who should 
employ such language. For we ascribe a sacramental virtue to 
phrases. But acts which tally with Alexander's sentiments 
may be committed not only with impunity but with the moral 
certainty that they will be applauded as "one hundred per cent 
patriotic." 

It is but just to point out that a considerable section of the 
United States press has called upon Mr. Harding to order 
an immediate investigation of the Haitian atrocities." "In 
the face of the terrific arraignment of our record of military 
occupation in Haiti," writes one widely circulating journal, 
"now laid before the Government at Washington by delegates 
from that island, it is impossible for Mr. Harding to postpone 
that full investigation which events in Haiti have long de- 
manded. 

"The language of the Haitian protest is more than strong. 
But it is also specific, and many of the charges are corrobor- 
ated by American observers in the island. An investigation, 
for example, would be justified by the findings of so compe- 
tent an observer as Harry A. Franck who in the Century 
Magazine tells a story of American oppression, of callousness 
to life on the part of many of our soldiers and officers there, 
and of a lack of discipline, which the best sentiment of the 
American people will not tolerate if proved to be true."^' 

Unhappily in the Haitian as in the Mexican issue it takes a 

"Cf. La Libertad (of Madrid) nth May, 1921. 

12 The New York Evening Post, the Century Magazine, the Nation, the 
New York Herald, May Qtli, 1921, and others. 
^^New York Evening Post, May 9th, 1921. 



280 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

long time for the best sentiment of the American people to 
make itself heard and felt and in the meanwhile wrongs are 
inflicted which can never be repaired. 

The Republic of Santo Domingo is almost as vociferous in 
its protests and as despairing of its future as that of Haiti. 
And yet the troops of the American Occupation are about to 
be withdrawn thence — under conditions which the best senti- 
ment of the American people must condemn as decisively as 
the misdeeds of its forces in Haiti. "The Harding Adminis- 
tration," writes one of the principal Dominican press organs, 
"with the most absolute tranquillity has declared us slaves of 
the White House, slaves of ambitious capitalists, slaves of 
that Republic which boasts itself the freest on earth." A 
joint protest signed by the editors of all the important news- 
papers states that the conditions of the withdrawal of the 
American troops deprives the people of their liberties, of their 
fiscal and legislative rights, of their schools, etc. The editors 
urge the whole Dominican people to unite in passive resistance 
to this encroachment on their sovereignty. The newspaper 
El Tiempo appeared with a funeral oration over the Domini- 
can Republic. "Alas for us and for our children ; for the cap- 
tivity will be eternal !" The American journar* from which 
these extracts are reproduced comments thus on the work of 
moralising the Dominican people by the military forces of the 
great democracy: "Have we as a people so far forgotten our 
republican principles as to charter our bureaucrats and soldiers 
to subiu£!^ate whatever weaker peoples they may find con- 
venient? That is exactly what we have permitted in the case 
of Santo Domingo. It is imperialism of the most dangerous 
sort, because it is the imperialism not of a nation, but of a 
nation's servants, acting; irresponsibly."*^ 

All this is surely far removed from what Mr. Hughes had 
in view when aspirin^: for his country' to the moral leadership 
of the world, on the ground that it is the foremost among the 
progressive nations. But it is nowise far removed from the 
fate which Mexicans believe would l)c theirs if they too should 

1* Taken from the New Republic, July 13, 1921. 
" Ibidem. 



THE FALL FROM GRACE IN HAITI 281 

fall under the moral guardianship of the great "Democracy 
of prohibition and righteousness." And one should make due 
allowance for this grounded apprehension when examining the 
motives of Mexico's reluctance to find herself isolated from 
the eastern world and left face to face with the United States. 
A people which has already lost more than half of its terri- 
tory to its great democratic neighbour, which is threatened 
with the prospect of losing more, which is having its treas- 
ures systematically drained by the new-rich of that assimila- 
tive Republic, is now being called upon to change its Consti- 
tution and alter its laws in order to enable those capitalists to 
exploit the natural resources of the country more easily, — 
such a people cannot be expected hurriedly to conclude a 
treaty — even though it be termed of "amity and commerce" — 
with the great moralising neighbour. The examples o«f Haiti 
and Santo Domingo corroborate its own experience and con- 
firm the belief that the character of States like that of indi- 
viduals rarely changes. 

It is not an easy matter to dispossess Mexicans of the no- 
tion that at the bottom of those fine phrases about the moral 
advancement of backward peoples, a policy of righteousness 
and a reign of justice, lurks hypocrisy of the rankest type. 
They refuse to make a distinction between the worst senti- 
ment of the servants of the United States Government, and the 
best sentiment of the American people which is ignored by the 
former while republics are being shorn of their sovereignty 
and is invoked only when the wrong can no longer be righted. 
They make the State responsible for its chosen agents and 
condemn and fear both equally. 

But it is not only the Mexicans who view the inspiriting 
watchwords and shibboleths of the great American people in 
the unfavourable light shed upon them by the deliberate acts 
of its representatives. In most countries of the world the ver- 
dict is the same, but being seldom reproduced in the United 
States it is hardly known, and is certainly not realised, there. 
If it were, the grotesqueness of the contrast between the noble 
aspirations towards the moral guardianship of the world voiced 
by well-intentioned but naive statesmen and the repellent in- 



282 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

stincts and brutal misdeeds of their representatives and agents 
in weak States would have long since appealed to the Yankee 
sense of humour. The Mexicans, however, appreciate it 
keenly. They put iMr. Hughes' lofty ideal of the fraternity of 
peoples side by side with the blood-thirst, violence and cruelty 
of the culture-bearers w^ho have been operating in Haiti and 
with the imperialistic feats of those who have been uplifting 
Santo Domingo. "This is a period," writes a representative 
New York journal, "when the motives of the United States 
and its relation to other nations of the world are being seri- 
ously questioned. Altruistic expressions of our views and in- 
tent are the common language of politicians of both parties 
and all groups. . . . The aspersion of hypocrisy which is al- 
ready cast upon us . . . can with difficulty be warded oflF." 
As an instance of the way in w^hich the idiosyncrasies of 
Washington diplomacy appear to plain-dealing public men in 
Europe, Lord Robert Cecil's recent remarks may be worth re- 
producing. Speaking^^ on the subject of mandates before the 
Council of the League of Nations, he said that "if that prob- 
lem was at a standstill it would be the fault of the United 
States wha did not want it to be solved without them but at 
the same time refused the invitations of the Chancellor of the 
League." And an influential British journal declares that the 
effort to draw closer the Latin-American Republics to the 
United States "has hitherto been c^iecked by fear on the part 
of the South and Central American States that the great North 
American Republic has a half- formed desire to dominate the 
whole Western Continent and reduce the sister Republics there 
to a state of tutelage under their powerful neighbour. . . . 
The chief basis for Latin-American dubiety in regard to the 
United States is mainly their uncertainty as to the policy of 
the latter in regard to Mexican affairs. H this is cleared up 
and guarantees are given in respect to the United States' in- 
tentions regarding South America there is no doubt that the 
political organisations of the whole Continent, with the ex- 
ception of Canada, would tend to draw closer together, so as 
to enable the Western hemisphere as a whole to stand in a 
"At Geneva on September 7th, 1921. 



THE FALL FROM GRACE IN HAITI 283 

firmer position with regard to the economic, financial and mili- 
tary power of Europe, backed now by the rising nations of the 
Far East,"^^ That is exactly what Mexico desires to have — 
guarantees in respect to the United States' intentions. 

"United States morality," Mexicans declare, "smells of oil. 
Oil is the motive power of its Mexican policy." Take, for 
instance, the recent despatch of warships to Tampico coinci- 
dently with the outbreak of the revolution expected and an- 
nounced by certain oil companies' agents. Its avowed object 
was to quell the disorders which these oil corporations con- 
fidently anticipated as a certain result of their own act of sus- 
pending operations and throwing thousands of Mexican work- 
men out of employment. A more suspicious looking com- 
bination of circumstances it would be hard to imagine. And 
when it is illumined by the allegation of the oil companies' 
whilom friend. General Pelaez, that to his knowledge a large 
sum of money was paid by one of the oil corporation's agents 
(he mentions names) to the chief of the rebels, one can readily 
understand the feelings of Mexicans. "An American 
steamer," we read in a provincial American journal, "carry- 
ing American cargo was tied up for more than a month at 
Buenos Aires because longshoremen declared a strike. Amer- 
ican property was by that strike damaged to the extent of 
several thousand dollars a day. . . , There was no sugges- 
tion during the 'Martha Washington's' enforced internment 
at Buenos Aires that the United States despatch a couple of 
warships to the Argentinian port to stand by in case the hos- 
tility of the strikers threatened to imperil the skipper's life or 
the property in his care. To have suggested such a course 
would have been to incur the charge of criminal feeble-minded- 
ness. Had the Martha Washington been engaged in the oil 
trade and had she docked at Tampico instead of Buenos Aires, 
the inference is strong that our Government's attitude would 
have been less restrained. It makes a difference in whose 
bailiwick American property is threatened. If it is threatened 
in the territory of a first-class Power our State Department 
writes notes. If it is threatened in Mexico our War Depart- 
1^ The Daily Telegraph, Sept. 7, 1921. 



284 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

ment sends battle cruisers. It makes a difference also what 
kind of American property rights are jeopardised. If it is 
cable rights in Yap, we complain to the Supreme Council. If 
it is oil rights in Tampico, we despatch a young fleet with 
orders to the Commanding Officer to land an army of occu- 
pation. 

"The cry of imperilled American interests comes loud from 
Tampico but it is a cry with an oily overtone. The deadly 
petroleum virus is once more at work to poison our relations 
with our Southern neighbour. Obregon's Government seems 
abundantly capable of protecting American lives, but unfor- 
tunately it is not American lives over which the State and 
Navy Department are so strangely exercised, but American 
oil."^« 

The influence of oil is, it must be admitted, answerable 
for the eclipse of truthfulness, the distortion of facts, the 
twisting of moral principles and the perpetuation of rank in- 
justice disguised as human fellowship and altruism. It was 
solicitude for the oil interests that led Secretary Fall to assert 
that the British Government controls one of the principal oil 
companies working in Mexico, to accuse it of unduly favour- 
ing these and to maintain an attitude of dignified silence when 
both statements were publicly proven to be untrue. It was 
solicitude for the oil interests that moved the State Depart- 
ment in Washington to insist upon a new agreement being 
made retroactive and the sacred property rights of non-Amer- 
icans in Mesopotamia being set summarily aside in order that 
Americans should acquire them. That Department contended 
that the concessions received years ago by British subjects and 
by the nationals of other countries should be declared null and 
void in the same off-handed way in which Carranza is accused 
of having proceeded with American rights. And Lord Curzon 
who in this case championed the sacredness of private prop- 
erty pointed out the inconsistency of this attitude with that 
which the same State Department is taking up "in regard to 
similar American interests in Mexico." He further laid stress 

18 The Virginian Pilot (Norfolk, Virginia). See also the Mexican Post, 
July 24, 1921. 



THE FALL FROM GRACE IN HAITI 285 

on the odd circumstance that, while the State Department con- 
tends that the oil resources of the world should be drawn upon 
for development without reference to nationality, still, by Ar- 
ticle I of the Philippine Constitution^^ (the oil companies make 
a speciality of Constitutions) participation in the working of 
all public lands containing petroleum is confined to citizens or 
corporations of the United States or the Philippines, and he ex- 
pressed his regret that this enactment contradicts the general 
principle of the United States. Lord Curzon might have 
added, had he been aware of the fact, that one of the candi- 
dates of the American corporations for the Presidency of the 
Mexican Republic is already bound by agreement, should he 
be put in power, to accord to American citizens a decided pref- 
erence over all other nationals in the matter of oil concessions. 
Is it to be wondered at that it is in the light of these back- 
slidings from grace that Mexicans interpret the terms right- 
eousness, moral guidance and altruism which are so often 
wafted to their ears on the breezes that blow f rorn the northern 
bank of the Rio Grande? 

18 Adopted on August 31st, 1920. 



CHAPTER XXII 

Conclusion 

The degree to which the sonorous phrases of American 
politicians about altruism, humanitarianism and righteousness 
are at variance with what appears to be the settled policy of 
imperialism originated and furthered by propagandist intrigue 
and subsequently acquiesced in by the responsible leaders of 
the great Western Democracy, is not realised by the American 
or European public. Nor can it be divined under the present 
system by which the wells of public information in the United 
States are controlled and "doctored." I have never during 
my various travels on the planet beheld any parallel to it 
in any country — the Tsardom included — with the sole excep- 
tion of Bolshevist Russia, and there the press is gagged openly 
and professedly. The main characteristics of public opinion 
enumerated by the late W. G. Sumner hold good to-day. Were 
it otherwise the public would apprehend the real nature of 
the feelings entertained towards the great imperialistic Democ- 
racy, as they know it, by all Central American Republics and 
by almost all the peoples of Latin-America. But, unhappily, 
the bulk of the population, which has little in common with 
its political leaders, cannot see the Republic as others see it. 
Even French publicists, whose general bias is to flatter the 
United States, feel constantly impelled to apply caustic criti- 
cism to the political methods and principles of the candidate- 
nation for the moral leadership of the world, which "thrusts 
aside treaties and refuses to be bound by the word of its 
President." In this connection some of the outspoken com- 
ments of that press would amply repay perusal. Those of 
M. Saint Brice, for example — who upbraids the United States 
for having "repudiated the signature of her President," and 
reproaches her late President with having "craftily tried bias" 
in order to undo covertly what he had done openly in connec- 

280 



CONCLUSION 287 

tion with the Shantung question: "Slyly he advised China 
to refuse her signature," — impute sinister tactics to the nation 
of which one may be sure the nation itself would never have 
approved. 

Without formally endorsing those grave accusations one 
cannot but see that vital interests are at stake in the vague 
new political doctrines of a group of men headed by Mr. 
Fall and in the very definite practices of the troops of occupa- 
tion and of other public servants of the great Democracy. 
The general trend of contemporary civilisation is frankly hos- 
tile to those dogmas and practices and the thinking world is 
growing more and more suspicious of the moral tone and 
truthfulness of those who inculcate and practise them. 

A' system of double weights and measures is always odious 
and in a country which is to serve as the moral guide of 
nations it is superlatively so. And that such a system is a 
feature of the foreign policy of the United States will be 
gainsaid by no impartial student of contemporary history. 
Leaving on one side the Haitian atrocities and the imperial- 
istic policy towards Santo Domingo, we need only take as 
an illustration "the doctrine of American property" as un- 
folded by Secretary Hughes. "Mexico is free," he says, "to 
adopt any policy which she pleases with respect to her public 
lands, but she is not free to destroy without compensation 
valid titles which have been obtained by American citizens 
under Mexican laws. A confiscatory policy strikes not only 
at the interests of particular individuals, but at the founda- 
tions of international intercourse." Now if this be true it is 
just as applicable to the United States as to Mexico, and may 
be invoked with as much force by the State Department in 
Tokio as by the State Department in Washington. It might 
happen that Japan some day should turn to account in Cali- 
fornia the Hughes doctrine of "the safe-guarding of property 
rights against confiscation" and the Hughes denial that Mex- 
ico is "free to destroy v^^ithout compensation valid titles which 
have been obtained by American citizens under Mexican laws." 
But of course Japanese rights on the Pacific Coast are another 
question. Our Mexican policy smells strongly of oil. Indeed, 



288 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

no effort is being made to conceal the odour.^ Nor should 
it be forgotten that the property rights which are so sacred 
in Mexico are brushed aside by the State Department when 
they belong to foreigners in Mesopotamia.^ If Mexico fol- 
lows the example of many other independent states and for- 
bids foreigners to acquire lands within a certain number of 
miles from the land and sea frontiers, a deafening outcry is 
raised in the United States and the repeal of the obnoxious 
statute is peremptorily called for. But the circumstance is 
withheld from the people that Mexico has kept well within 
her sovereign rights in this and might go further without 
overstepping the bounds. Nor has due attention been paid 
to the fact that the Government of Jamaica introduced a bill 
into the Legislative Council to prevent aliens from holding 
lands in any part of the island — a measure which will seri- 
ously affect the American companies now operating there. ^ 
Down to three years ago and possibly still to-day Russia had 
a law of the same tenor as that of Mexico. Germany pos- 
sessed another of the like character. In Finland no foreigner 
could acquire land anywhere without the enactment of a spe- 
cial statute in each case for the purpose by the Legislature — a 
procedure which was well nigh prohibitive. But no Govern- 
ment has thought or thinks of protesting against such limita- 
tions of "American rights." 

In the France of to-day the alien restriction laws recently 
passed by the Chamber are drastic enough to warrant not 
merely diplomatic notes and protests but much more heroic 
measures on the part of a Government which objects to the 
mild self-protective legislation of the Mexican Republic. 
"Under the new law," we read, "no foreigner is permitted to 
exercise the professions of customs-broker, transport agent, 
information bureau, immigration and emigration agents, di- 
rector of an employment bureau, proprietor of a hotel, cafe or 

' The (New York) IVorld. June Qth. 1921. 

* See the official Oil Correspondence between the United States and 
Great Britain, published in I.oiulon by the British Foreign Office, and 
the refusal of the latter to violate the rights of property in favour of 
.Americans. 

•'' Sec telegrani of the Associated Press, July 23, 1921. 



CONCLUSION 289 

cabaret, director, administrator or proprietor of a newspaper, 
unless express permission has been first obtained from the 
Government. Thousands of Americans Hving in Paris will 
be affected by the law." If an enactment of this tenor were 
entered on the Mexican statute book what a howl of indig- 
nation would be raised in the United States! And yet the 
Mexican Congress would be merely exercising its sovereign 
powers. But what is meet and proper for all other inde- 
pendent States is to be forbidden to the Southern Republic. 
And the only intelligible principle on which such a curtail- 
ment of sovereignty can be defended is one which assumes 
that Mexico is become a "sphere of influence" of the United 
States. 

Casting a hurried glance at the past and present relations 
between the two neighbouring Republics, one is forcibly struck 
with the broad gulf that sunders the magnanimous profes- 
sions of the great Northern Democracy from its deliberate 
and systematic acts. The former appeal to sentiments of 
benevolence, humanity, brotherhood, while the latter seem 
rooted in greed of pelf and power and are carried out by 
methods which may be explained, — but can neither be justi- 
fied nor excused — by the German militarist maxim that 
"necessity" knows no law. And in applying this maxim 
Mexico's would-be ethical Mentor does not recoil from the 
extreme of creating or fostering the appalling conditions in 
the sister Republic which would alone provide a warrant for 
regenerative action. Truth is stifled by disingenuous propa- 
gandists. Intercourse between the two peoples is craftily 
hindered, lest they should carry out Mr. Harding's fruitful 
advice and learn to know and respect each other. Excursions 
of America's business men are openly discouraged. Calum- 
nies and poisonous half truths are scattered broadcast by the 
press, the cinematograph, books and pamphlets until the aver- 
age American's mental picture of the Mexican people bears 
as little resemblance to the original as to the Weddas of 
Ceylon. 

There is, however, one true feature in that distorted pic- 
ture: the conditions in which the great mass of Mexicans 



290 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

live and work and die are a disgrace to civilisation. But the 
remedy lies where the cause lurks. And most of those shock- 
ing conditions are traceable to a single source, the appropria- 
tion — one might aptly term it expropriation — by foreign cor- 
porations, mainly American, of the natural wealth of the 
country, in circumstances which would not be tolerated else- 
where. For the righteous indignation of those who stigma- 
tise as iniquitous Mexico's lack of respect for the sanctity of 
private property is linked with the all-important fact that this 
property was originally acquired at a time and under cir- 
cumstances which, without actually destroying its technical 
validity, considerably lessen the sacred and inviolable char- 
acter claimed for it. The individuals who sold the lands 
in those days, as well as the legislators whose laws sanc- 
tioned the sale, were unaware of the value which the subse- 
quent national progress of the world would impart to the 
wealth of the subsoil. 

To-day the Mexican people may be said to have no share in 
the marvellous riches of their native land. Their plight may 
be likened to that of Tantalus. The resources of their coun- 
try go to enrich a group of affluent foreigners and to em- 
bolden these to intermeddle in every branch of government. 
This disinheritance which the Mexican Government is now 
summoned to sanction and perpetuate is at the root of the 
people's ignorance, of the dissatisfaction and the frequent 
bloody revolts — disastrous only to themselves — which stamped 
their impress on the recent history of the Mexican Republic. 
Systematic education, the maintenance of public order and 
the smooth working of national institutions have been made 
impossible by want of funds. The population is the poorest 
and most wretched in the civilised world. This is so true 
that the most effective way in which the Mexican Govern- 
ment could make known its case would be — were it not 
derogatory to the dignity of the nation — to send groups of 
the misery-stricken men, women and children of the Republic 
around the globe and let their prosperous fellow-creatures be- 
hold how the inhabitants of the richest country on earth are 
condemned from their birth to a slow physical and spiritual 



CONCLUSION 291 

death by suffering, disease and crass ignorance, in order that 
a few pampered foreigners should become multimillionaires. 

And not contented with their vast monopoly in the present, 
the enterprising oil corporations are casting around for the 
means of increasing it in the future. Hence their quest of 
political, in addition to financial, power, their alliance with 
pettifogging politicians and the extensive use which they 
make of misleading propaganda. In words they repudiate 
intervention, but the unswerving trend of the movement which 
they have called into being is intervention pure and simple. 
The history of Mexico for over half a century consists largely 
in episodes of intervention by the United States. During 
that brief period more than fifty per cent of Mexico's terri- 
tory was seized and annexed by the sister Republic on pre- 
texts which are being diligently kept alive by the propagandists 
to-day who have earmarked what remains of the Republic for 
Cubanisation. 

By her open-handed hospitality under Diaz, Mexico en- 
meshed herself in a fine network of international complica- 
tions from which extrication is superlatively difficult. By 
welcoming American capitalists she introduced American 
politicians within her gates and is now liable to become their 
ward. By admitting American clergymen to preach and teach 
she is deemed to have given away with her hospitality a 
portion of her sovereignty and to have renounced her right 
to legislate on matters ecclesiastical. By adopting freedom 
of the press she has exposed herself to the damaging charge 
of bolshevism and her government is held responsible for 
newspaper articles of which it has no cognisance.* If a sup- 
plementary tax is levied on the export of crude petroleum — 
a tax which the American Legislature was disposed to put on 
its importation — angry voices are uplifted in protests and 
the cry of confiscation is heard throughout the United States, 
whose citizens in the Transvaal silently endure the govern- 

■* In the month of March, 1921, some Americans who were said by a 
writer in a Mexican journal to have worked for intervention took umbrage 
because the President of the Republic did not order the articles to be 
stopped. They considered that to be his duty to American citizens, what- 
ever the Mexican Constitution might say to the contrary. 



292 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

ment tax of forty per cent on all gold and diamonds which 
they lincl in that ctnnitry. If Obregon's government parcels 
out estates as vast as some European realms in order that 
Mexicans able and willing to till the land may receive suit- 
able lots, it is forthwith accused of communism or worse. 
When men obnoxious to the oil corporations are offered 
posts in the cabinet and the candidates of these corporations 
are passed over — for they too have their candidates — the 
President is said to be in the hands of bolshevists and the 
country on the high road to ruin. Labour legislation, too, in 
cases where it merely secures a living wage for Mexican 
workmen is denounced as bolshevist. And so on to the end 
of the chapter. Thus in whatsoever direction ?^Iexico moves 
she is caught and tripped up by the fine meshes of international 
complications woven by those foreign guests on whom she 
bestowed hospitality, wealth and the power inseparable from 
wealth. 

The legends created and spread abroad by professional 
propagandists about Mexico are, to use a simile employed 
by Joseph de Maistre, like counterfeit coin which is struck by 
unscrupulous individuals who know what they are doing and 
is afterwards uttered by honest unsuspecting folk who in- 
tensify the evil deed unwittingly. With such counterfeit coin 
the United States is now inundated. 

Nor does Mexico's complaint against her neighbours end 
here. She roundly charges them with plotting against the 
legally constituted government, with aiding and abetting 
Mexican rebels, with sending their representatives to secret 
conventicles in which revolutionary plans of campaign are 
elaborated, with donating funds to those who undertake to 
make war on the authorities and with securing special preferen- 
tial terms for themselves and their countrymen from pre- 
tenders to the Presidency. Those are damaging indictments 
which undoubtedly impair the value of the State Department's 
assurance that Mexico is free to have any government that 
suits her — although one must recognise the fact that that 
department is not responsible for the aberrations of American 
citizens, nor even of American officials. These damning 



CONCLUSION 293 

charges, however, are so definite and circumstantial that in 
all probability a good deal more will have been said and 
written about them before these pages have seen the light. 
The reader has already been apprised of General Pelaez' 
arraignment of his former friends, the oil men, one of whom 
he names as having handed a large sum of money to the 
leaders of the abortive June "revolution" in Tampico for 
the cause of the rebels. On the 17th of that same month 
the Ministry of the Interior in Mexico City received an offi- 
cial telegram from one of its agents in Nuevo Laredo con- 
taining an account of a conspirative conclave held In Montull 
at which Pablo Gonzales, Robles Dominquez, Francisco Mur- 
guia and Esteban Cantu were present and "held consultation 
with a delegate of the oil companies who arrived expressly 
for the purpose from Washington."^ What degree of truth 
this message contained the writer of these pages is unable 
to determine and unwilling to discuss. He is concerned only 
with the fact that it was taken very seriously by the Secre- 
tary of the Interior, as were others of a still more compromis- 
ing character that shortly afterwards followed. If the grim 
truth which will be disclosed in the near future should be 
found to tally with its presentment in those telegrams, the 
sympathy of right-minded people throughout the world for 
the ill-starred Mexican people will be increased a hundred- 
fold. In the meantime it will be wise to suspend one's judg- 
ment on this, the most sinister of the alleged features of the 
open and covert campaign carried on against the Southern 
Republic, under cover of the loftiest motives that inspire 
human endeavour. 

Mr. Hughes enjoys an enviable reputation throughout the 
world wherever probity Is appreciated In deed or by lip-wor- 
ship, and if straightforwardness and fairness were identical 
with statecraft he would deserve to rank with the foremost 
statesmen of modern times. But honesty is only one of the 
many elements that go to qualify a man to govern a nation 
and its possession, as we see, does not dispense Its fortunate 

^El Democrata, June 19th, 1921. Also El Heraldo de Mexico, June 
29th, 1921. 



294 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

possessor from the acquisition or inheritance of the others. 
Without committing himself to any scheme for disposing of 
the differences between Mexico and the United States, the stu- 
dent of history cannot but wonder at the Hne of reasoning by 
which such an upright public worker has reached the conclu- 
sion that he can best serve his country — and possibly further 
the best interests of the sister Republic as well — by rendering 
financial credit inaccessible to the latter and thus condemning 
its sorely tried inhabitants to go on enduring hunger, disease 
and despair without visible hope of surcease or easement. 
Truly there is something supremely pathetic in the figures of 
the Presidents of the two Republics of whom both are sin- 
cerely anxious to combine the interests of their respective coun- 
tries with the principles of truth, justice, human brotherhood, 
and yet one through his chief secretary is busy withal sapping 
the power of the other and strangling the Republic which this 
other is successfully endeavouring to save and regenerate. 
Mechanically one's mind wanders back to those days of yore 
when honest well-meaning men like Torquemada sent their 
honest fellow creatures to the rack and the stake with a re- 
luctance the sincerity of which did credit to their fellow-feel- 
ing, and an anxiety to save their souls which testified to their 
profound religious sense. Their only drawback was what 
Pascal termed a false conscience, which is no uncommon phe- 
nomenon among some of the very best intentioned men of to- 
*/ day.-^ While hoping to further American interests which he 
appears to have partly identified with those of the oil corpora- 
tions, Mr. Hughes has failed to take due account of those of 
humanity at large which occupy such a prominent place in his 
public utterances. This aspect of the American secretary's 
statecraft reminds one of what Turgot said of those who be- 
come the dupes of general ideas which are true because drawn 
from nature, "but which people embrace w-ith a narrow stiff- 
ness that makes them false, because they no longer combine 
them with circumstances, taking for absolute what is only the 
expression of a relation." Their minds operate in vacuo. . 

If Mr. Hughes could but put himself mentally in the place 
of General Obregon and realise this President's tasks, difficul- 



CONCLUSION 295 

ties and exertions, he would probably feel moved to help in 
lieu of thwarting him, and this quite as much in the interests 
of the United States as of Mexico. Meanwhile the unbiased 
outsider whose angle of observation permits him to survey 
both sides with equal comprehensiveness is amazed at the spec- 
tacle of the deplorable one-sided campaign that unfolds itself 
to his gaze..-<rhe North American statesman declares that he 
will recognise the Mexican Government only after it has given 
proof that it wields the power and possesses the will to fulfil 
its international obligations. Now the only proof conceivable 
is the experiment and Mexico is eager to make it. Mr. Hughes, 
however, declines to accept that and insists upon Obregon imi- 
tating President Wilson in Paris and signing a treaty which 
the nation will repudiate and which will have no more intrin- 
sic worth in Mexico than that signed by the United States 
has had in Haiti. 

The scrap of paper doctrine is gall and wormwood to Mex- 
ico, and if the Haitian Memoir signifies anything, it cannot 
have a particular relish for the United States. Nor does Haiti 
offer the only example of the kind. The treaty of amity still in 
force between Mexico and her northern neighbour as we saw 
obliges the two contracting parties to refrain from having re- 
course to arms and to submit their differences to arbitration. 
Yet that solemn obligation did not prevent Mr. Wilson from 
despatching an army under General Pershing to the northern 
provinces of Mexico, nor Mr. Harding from sending recently 
two warships to Tampico, congruously with Senator Fall's 
recommendations to the Senate. The binding power of trear 
ties was seldom less effectual than it is to-day. ^-v 

Further, the United States Government has asked Mexico 
to pay her debts, but refuses to allow her to raise the money. 
Taxation is termed confiscation and foreign loans are effec- 
tually vetoed in advance. Yet the liabilities cannot be met 
without having recourse to both expedients. Again the United 
States Government demands from Mexico full compensation 
for damage done to its nationals during the period of the 
civil war. Waiving all unsettled questions of liability and limi- 
tations, President Obregon assents and officially invites the 



296 MEXICO ON THE VERGE 

United States and all debtor countries to send delegates to ar- 
range the procedure and determine the amount due. But the 
United States refuses to accept the invitation and induces 
France and Britain to follow her lead. Thereupon the propa- 
gandists of the oil companies proclaim to the world that Mex- 
ico is a defaulter and President Obregon not a whit better than 
President Carranza, And the bulk of the unreasoning public 
believes them. Lastly, President Harding, through his chief 
secretary, Mr. Hughes, denies official recognition to President 
Obregon unless he first demonstrates that his word as Presi- 
dent is indeed worthy of trust, and the only demonstration 
that will satisfy him consists in Obregon deliberately violat- 
ing his oath as President and publicly violating the law which 
he solemnly swore to observe. 

Meanwhile General Obregon undeterred by these formidable 
hindrances and dangers pursues his own course with persever- 
ance and serenity, relying upon the approval of his conscience 
and the sympathy of right-minded men and guided in all his 
steps by high moral ideals. His is perhaps the first concrete 
example of governance by morality irrespective of political 
controversies, party interests and ephemeral success, and for 
that reason among others is well worth a careful study by 
those public bodies and private individuals throughout the 
world who are interested in the spiritual advancement of man- 
kind. His remarkable experiment, whatever may be the out- 
come, will leave a profound and salutary influence on the 
political and social thought of his generation which will make 
itself felt far beyond the boundaries of his native country. 



THE END 



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LIBRARY OF CONUHtss 



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